The number of narcotics drug users and traffickers has doubled in Banke district over the last few years, police said.

The District Police Office, Banke said the number of people arrested for drug trafficking and its abuse, the number of related cases registered in court and the volume of such drugs confiscated by police vindicate this trend.

According to police, banned drugs are easily available in the Indian border town Rupaidiha, which is close to the district.

Besides men, the number of teenage girls involved in substance abuse and its trafficking has increased too.

Police said some teenage girls are involved in drug abuse and trafficking because of peer influence. Some girls work as prostitutes. Teenage girls from the district as well as those from other districts who are living here in course of higher studies or for any other works, are found involved in these illegal activities. Police said they arrested 11 teenage girls on the charge of drug peddling or abuse in the district in fiscal year 2017/18.

Police Inspector Rana Bahadur Bista said, the girls picked up this bad habit because of their friendship with males.

According to him, the number of drug users in Banke district has doubled at present in comparison to their numbers in the last three years.

Police arrested 108 people on the charge of drug abuse and trafficking in fiscal year 2015/16 and filed court cases against 78 offenders.

Police confiscated 587.68 gms brown sugar, 30.2 kgs hashish , 935 tablets of Nitrozepam, five kgs of opium and 15 kgs marijuana in fiscal 2015/16 year.

Police arrested 189 offenders on this charge from the district in fiscal year 2016/17 and court cases were filed against all of them.

Police seized 537.312 gms brown sugar, 37 kgs hashish, 10.53 kgs opium, 5.2 litres Corex and 975 tablets of Nitrozepam during that period. Police have arrested 243 offenders on the charge of drug abuse and peddling, and filed court cases against 147 of them so far in the fiscal year 2017/18.

Police have confiscated 375.26 gms brown sugar, 86.25 kgs hashish, 7.2 kgs opium, 100 kgs marijuana, 2,650 millilitres Corx, 3,926 tablets of Notrozepam and Nitrovet and 69 tablets of Spam during this period. Police said drug users and traffickers are attracted more towards tablets among the different narcotics substances because they are easy to carry and conceal.

Drugs trafficked from here are supplied to Surkhet, Dang, Dailekh and Jumla. Youth from Jumla visit Banke to smuggle into Nepal drugs from India.

Among the inmates in the District Prison, those convicted of drug trafficking and peddling outnumber the other convicts. Acting Chief of the Prison Shyam Lamichhane, said, “Out of the 653 inmates in the district prison, 232 are convicts of drug related offences.”