LAHORE: The Lahore Police have arrested six suspected drug peddlers and recovered more than eight kilograms of charas along with 240 grams of ice (crystal methamphetamine) in three separate operations carried out across the provincial capital, according to official statements issued by the Operations Wing of Lahore Police.
Cases have been registered against all six suspects under the relevant sections of narcotics law, and further investigation is under way.
The largest single recovery came in the jurisdiction of Baghbanpura Police Station. According to the official statement, a police picket set up on the basis of secret information signalled a suspicious vehicle to stop. The occupants, instead of complying, attempted to speed away from the checkpoint.
Police teams responded promptly and intercepted the vehicle, arresting two drug peddlers along with the vehicle itself. More than five kilograms of charas were recovered from their possession. A case has been registered against the accused.
The recovery of the vehicle is significant for investigators, as transport used in narcotics movement often provides leads on supply routes, storage points and financiers further up the chain.
In a second set of actions, Mozang Police arrested two drug peddlers during operations conducted in different parts of their jurisdiction. A combined quantity of two kilograms and 80 grams of charas was recovered from the suspects.
According to the police statement, the accused were engaged in mobile street-level peddling, moving through the surrounding neighbourhoods to sell narcotics rather than operating from a fixed location. Cases have been registered against both suspects.
Mobile peddling of this kind has been a recurring enforcement challenge in Lahore’s densely populated inner-city localities, where dealers rely on foot movement and short-notice handovers to avoid detection.
The third operation carried an inter-district dimension. Police at Sabzi Mandi Police Post arrested two drug peddlers and foiled an attempt to move narcotics from Depalpur — a tehsil of Okara district — into Lahore.
A total of one kilogram and 300 grams of charas and 240 grams of ice were recovered from the pair, and cases have been registered.
The seizure of crystal methamphetamine is particularly notable. Ice has emerged as one of the fastest-spreading synthetic drugs in urban Punjab in recent years, with law enforcement repeatedly flagging its circulation among younger users near educational institutions and hostels.
The three operations form part of a sustained province-wide crackdown carried out under the Punjab government’s “Drug-Free Punjab” vision and on the directions of Inspector General of Police Punjab Abdul Kareem, who has repeatedly instructed field formations to pursue every link in the narcotics supply chain rather than only street-level sellers.
The scale of that campaign is reflected in official figures. Punjab Police reported in June that 21,824 drug peddlers had been arrested and 21,712 cases registered across the province during the current year, with 2,866 arrests and 2,775 cases recorded in Lahore alone. Recoveries in the provincial capital over that period included 1,027 kilograms of charas and 256 kilograms of ice.
The provincial administration has also built new institutional capacity around the drive. A dedicated anti-narcotics force has been deployed across nine divisions of Punjab, with specialised teams formed at police station level, while a special court in Lahore has been established to expedite pending drug-related cases.
All six suspects will be produced before the relevant court as investigations proceed. Police sources indicate that follow-up inquiries in such cases typically focus on identifying suppliers, tracing the origin of the seized consignments and establishing whether the arrested individuals were working independently or as part of an organised network.
Officials have consistently urged citizens to report narcotics activity in their neighbourhoods, noting that a substantial share of successful operations begins with community information — as was the case in Baghbanpura.
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