Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday lauded state police after it intercepted a vehicle and recovered 637. 28 grams of heroin in Karbi Anglong District.

The driver has been arrested, the Chief Minister informed.

“As part of our ongoing Assam Against Drugs campaign, @karbianglongpol intercepted a vehicle coming from a neighbouring State and recovered 637.28 gms of heroin contained in 50 soap boxes. Good job @assampolice,” Mr Sarma posted on X.

As part of our ongoing #AssamAgainstDrugs campaign, @karbianglongpol intercepted a vehicle coming from a neighbouring State and recovered 637.28 gms of heroin contained in 50 soap boxes.

The driver has been apprehended in this regard.

Good job @assampolice! pic.twitter.com/n25Qhc5AgP

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) October 28, 2023

Earlier in September, Assam Police arrested two drug peddlers and seized 575 grams of heroin in the same district.

According to police, the drug traffickers, identified as Nur Uddin and Azhar Uddin were arrested based on credible information.

Earlier on September 25, Karbi Anglong district police apprehended one person named Samsul Haque and recovered 47 soap boxes of heroin weighing 583.08 grams.

Assam police on September 23 arrested a drug peddler and seized a large quantity of contraband drugs from his possession in Cachar district, officials said.

The estimated value of the seized contraband drugs was Rs 2 crore, they said.

According to police, the accused was identified as Azad Uddin Barlaskar (31).

Cachar Superintendent of Police, Numal Mahatta had said that based on a tip-off, a team of police from the Cachar district carried out an operation and intercepted a vehicle at Banskandi-Silchar road.

Reacting to the arrest of the BJP functionaries over the removal of a flagpole in Chennai, BJP leader DV Sadananda Gowda said that “injustice” was meted out to the BJP cadre and that illegal and unethical investigation was done by the DMK.

The BJP leader also said that the issue had been positively acknowledged by the state governor and that an inquiry would be carried out into the matter.

Speaking to news agency ANI on the issue, Gowda said, “The Governor has positively responded to us, he said that he will call the chief secretary and other senior police officers and will inquire about the matter, injustice was done to the BJP cadre, illegal and unethical investigation done by the party (DMK).”

Earlier, BJP state vice president Narayanan Thirupathy questioned the necessity of the flag removal and called it “vendetta politics”.

“There are thousands of flagpoles in the city. Are all of them with permission? No, but in this case, we have been seeking permission for the last four months. Why it was not given? And what is the necessity for the police to go there en masse and take that (flag pole) out in the early hours? What is the need?” he told ANI.

“The time and energy of the police force has been wasted. Our BJP cadres have been brutally attacked and arrested. More than hundreds of BJP cadres including a lot of women have been detained. What makes you do that? This is vendetta politics. You want to threaten BJP workers, which is not possible,” he said further.

Six members of the BJP were arrested for creating a ruckus over raising a flag post outside the compound wall of party state chief K Annamalai’s residence last night in Panaiyur, Chennai.

Some residents in Panaiyur had opposed the flag post being raised. Following the protest, police officials reached the spot with a JCB and removed the newly erected flagpost from the area.

In response to this, BJP workers gathered around the area and started opposing the flag post removal which resulted in a tense situation in the area.

Shortly, after the situation got out of control and BJP workers started creating a ruckus, a team of police reached the spot and arrested six people including BJP Sports and Development Cell State President Amar Prasad Reddy.

Further, Amar Prasad Reddy was produced before the Magistrate Court in Tambaram.

Tambaram Judicial Magistrate Varsha ordered Judicial custody for Amar Prasad Reddy for 15 days until November 3.

Giving information about the incident, the Tambaram Commissionarate said, “Without prior permission yesterday before the compound wall of BJP State President Annamalai’s residence 45 feet flag pole was erected near to Electric wires engendering people’s life and disturbing the public. Chennai Corporation and Police decided to remove this flag pole and informed the decision to BJP.”

“Around 8 pm when the police tried to remove the flag pole BJP State Vice President Karu Nagarajan and around 110 people gathered and raised slogans against the Tamil Nadu Government and also stopped the officials from doing duty. T20 Kanathur Police registered a case against them and they were released on bail,” it said.

“Likewise, when Chennai Corporation used JCB to remove the flag pole, a few workers threw stones at JCB glass and broke it. Regarding this 5 were booked and sent to judicial custody,” said the Commissionarate.

Reacting to the incident, K Annamalai posted on X, “The draconian and fascist DMK Government should understand that it is no match to the resilience and perseverance of a BJP Karyakartha. Our party flag is a symbol of integrity and sacrifice, and every BJP karyakarta will hold it high with a sense of pride. By taking one down in Panaiyur, you’ve let 10,000 more emerge.”

“Starting from November 1, @BJP4TamilNadu will install 100 flag poles every day for 100 days across TN, the 10,000th flag will be hoisted in Panaiyur by Thiru Vivin Bhaskaran, who was hurt by the State Police’s aggression while protesting against the removal of the BJP Flag pole. DMK’s days are getting numbered by their cowardly actions,” he added.

DMK Spokesperson TKS Elangovan reacted to the BJP claim and told ANI, “BJP can never grow in Tamil Nadu. First, do they have permission to erect a new flag pole? Is it their own land? Even we DMK and everyone has to get permission to erect flag poles in public places. No political vendetta and all.”

Aam Aadmi Party Senior leader and National spokesperson Reena Gupta attacked the Centre, alleging that the entire North India is struggling with air pollution, but it has no concrete action plan to control it.

Reena Gupta, in a press conference, said, “People in Northern India are suffering due to air pollution, but the Central Government lacks any action plan to control it. The surprising thing is that on October 24, the Central Government shut down that database. They closed the SAFAR website because we began raising our voices that 70 per cent of Delhi’s air pollution is coming from outside Delhi, most of which is from BJP-ruled states.”

The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) is a national initiative introduced by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) to measure the air quality of a metropolitan city, by measuring the overall pollution level and the location-specific air quality of the city.

The system is indigenously developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune and is operationalized by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The AAP National Spokesperson said, “Currently, only the Kejriwal government in Delhi is taking strong measures to reduce air pollution by implementing winter and summer action plans. As a result, Delhi’s air quality has seen a 30 per cent improvement in the last few years.”

Pointing out that 70 per cent of Delhi’s air pollution is coming from outside states, she said, “Data from the central government’s IMD department’s website reveals that 70 per cent of Delhi’s air pollution is coming from outside states. When they raised their voices about controlling pollution from outside states, the Central Government shut down that website.”

Expressing her concern over rising AQI levels in northern India, Reena Gupta said, “As the winter season comes, the air quality of the entire northern region of India deteriorates. Be it UP, Delhi, Punjab, Gurgaon, etc. Doctors will tell you that there is a sudden rise in the number of patients with asthma during the winter in northern India. As of 2019, 99.5 per cent of districts in India did not meet WHO’s air quality guidelines. This implies that 99 per cent of the people in the country are not breathing ‘healthy Air.’ This is a big emergency, and the Central Government should take appropriate measures concerning the health of Indians. To date, no plans have been announced by the PM and the Union Environment Minister.”

She emphasized that in the entire country, only Delhi’s CM Arvind Kejriwal is concerned about the people and their health. Each year Delhi’s CM Arvind Kejriwal announces the ‘Winter Action Plan’ and ‘Summer Action Plan’ to brief about measures to be taken by the Delhi Government to save common people from the deteriorating environment.

“In the list of 50 most polluted cities, 39 cities feature from India only. Among these 39, 20 most polluted cities are from UP but one would be shocked to know that the BJP-ruled UP government hasn’t ever mentioned ‘Air Quality.’ Only the Delhi government is working towards the air quality, and because of this, there’s been an improvement of 30 per cent in air quality,” she added.

Talking about the Supreme Court ruling and NGT order on Delhi pollution Reena Gupta said, “For the past 10 years, the Supreme Court has been telling the UP Government to find a solution to brick kilns because it cause a lot of air pollution. The Court also suggested using new technology, but the UP Government has not taken any steps in this regard. Even today, there are 2,000 brick kilns in the NCR that are operating with old technology. Among them, 150 kilns are in Ghaziabad, and 250 are in Muzaffarnagar. All the smoke from these kilns goes to Delhi. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered that all industries should use clean fuel, meaning use PNG. After this, all industries in Delhi are running on PNG, but nothing has been done in the NCR so far.”

Reena Gupta said that a high-level meeting of all the Environment Ministers of the northern states should be convened and the SAFAR website should be restarted.

“The Aam Aadmi Party has two demands. The first demand is that a high-level meeting of all the Environment Ministers of the northern states should be convened. The second demand is to reopen the SAFAR website because the public should know where the pollution is coming from and which government agencies are responsible.”

“The Central Government is only good at passing the buck; they don’t do any real work. Only the Delhi government is actively working to reduce pollution. The Kejriwal government has shut down power plants that were spreading pollution. They have implemented an electric vehicle policy to reduce pollution and encouraged industries to switch to PNG. However, unless all other state governments work similarly, pollution cannot be reduced,” the spokesperson concluded.