Puri: With Odisha’s Puri turning into a harbor for drug mafias, a novel initiative – ‘Matru Shakti’ – was launched by the police to actively involve women volunteers to curb the menace in in the pilgrim town.
As part of the drive, the women participants will be identified as Matru Shakti volunteers. They will account for drug trafficking in their areas.
After the project was launched on Wednesday, Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh informed that the main objective of the initiative is to ensure community participation in the drive against drugs, especially in different ‘sahis’ and residential areas in the beach town.
He further added that the Matru Shakti volunteers will conduct awareness drives against drug abuse with the help of police and keep a vigil on peddlers as well as addicts in their neighbourhoods.
The volunteers will work in close coordination with the nodal officers of police stations, said reports.
Women officers of the ‘mahila’ and ‘sishu’ desks of each police station will conduct regular patrolling on Pink Scooty in vulnerable areas, especially in Narendra Kona locality.
Around 678 gms brown sugar and 62 kg marijuana have been seized by the cops in Puri so far this year. “After two to three months we will again conduct a meeting, I expect all the volunteers to inform that brown sugar is not being smuggled in their locality,” said SP Singh to the women in the meeting.
