Drug menace raises its ugly head:

Drastic drop in detections; Excise Department takes backstep:

Drug busting in crucial areas brought to a halt

By kurulu Kariyakarawana

Controversy surrounds over the recent directive made by the Excise Department hierarchy to cease all detections pertaining to heroin and other dangerous narcotics within the Colombo City limits in favour of a petition filed by a group of Excise Inspectors. The decision had led to a serious situation where not only a large number of minor Excise officers were agitated and disheartened but the drug menace in the city has started to raise its ugly head since a single detection for the past five months has not been conducted.

Checking for heroin

An addict taking a whiff of heroin

An aerial view of the metropolis

The Sunday Observer learns from reliable sources that the controversial directive was made by the Deputy Excise Commissioner General Crimes in a letter dated May 23, 2013, giving explicit instructions to cease all detections related to narcotics defined under the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance indefinitely with effect from 01 June, 2013. What is more the directive had also ordered the Excise Colombo City Office to handover all future information leading to detections to the Excise Narcotic Bureau.

The decision had been taken considering a petition filed by six Excise Inspectors attached to the Colombo City Office including its OIC Excise Chief Inspector, C U Nanayakkara claiming that they would refrain from conducting such detections due to the increasing number of malpractices and corruption by junior officers including Excise Sergeants and Guards.

They have further stated in a letter addressed to the Excise Commissioner General that the situation was getting out of hand because of these errant minor officers who engage in detecting narcotic raids one after another.

However, the real situation was revealed when a group of agitated minor Excise officers on account of anonymity divulge the true picture behind the scene.

It is learnt that a large number of competent and skilled minor officers were transferred from the Colombo City Office recently making way for a new batch of Excise Guards with barely any experience in narcotic detections in Colombo. The new batch was to be overseen by a group of Excise Inspectors who had been transferred from other parts of the country with less experience on busting drugs in a crucial areas like Colombo where the crime rate is high.

When it comes to general Excise violations illicit liquor detections hold a very small figure in Colombo compared to the outstations but holds a high figure in drugs and heroin cases. Therefore the necessity to increase detections on narcotics was felt by both the junior and senior officers except for the mentioned group of Inspectors, in charge of Colombo City Office who lack competency and skill in conducting narcotic detections.

The group therefore invented a scheme to report to the hierarchy that there are lot of malpractices involving junior staff in narcotic detections and that the entire drug raids should be transferred to Excise Narcotic Bureau which is located next to the Excise Colombo City Office on McCallum Road.

The group of Inspectors completely converted the situation upside down by stating wrong facts about the junior officers hiding their true nature of competency and skill in drug detection. In other words these Inspectors wanted to stay at the office and confine the Excise Colombo City Office merely to a liquor license checking office. Their chief argument is that since the Excise Narcotic Bureau is there to detect heroin, why Excise Colombo City Office would worry about it.

Police Department has a special unit to detect drugs called Police Narcotic Bureau. Apart from this Colombo has 15 police stations and over 30 other special units and vice squads to maintain law and order and conduct detections. All these units have the authority to conduct raids related to drugs in any part of Colombo without any hindrance from any law enforcing authority.

This does not mean that the Police Narcotic Bureau has the sole authority to conduct raids related to drugs. This is even applicable to the Excise Department. Having an Excise Narcotic Bureau does not mean that other Excise divisions and offices could not conduct raids related to drugs, questioned the aggrieved officers.

In 2012 Excise Colombo City Office conducted 697 detections. Out of this 254 were unlawful possession of heroin and 353 were unlawful possession of ganja. 90 other cases were related to different offences. In 2013 from January 01 to June 01 the unit has conducted 182 detections. Out of this 37 were for unlawful possession of heroin and 109 were for unlawful possession of ganja. 36 were other cases. Since June 01, 2013 to date there is a drastic drop of detections or perhaps hardly any detections have been reported due to the special directive. Because of this situation two serious problems have arisen. Firstly the drug related activity has gone up with more drugs entering the underground sale.

The other is the agitation created among the junior officers for not having given any detections to carry out which could ultimately be reflected in their personal file. Promotions and salary increments and other service benefits for these junior officers are entirely based on merit they earn through carrying out these detections. If they are kept away from these detections not only a vital portion of young skilled officers will be lost to the department but their enthusiasm to fight crime would fade away. This could ultimately bring a bad reputation to the Excise Department in combating crime in the future.