Drug smuggling increased after America left Afghanistan, Indian Navy confiscated drugs worth millions of dollars so far

A top Indian Navy official said on Tuesday that there has been a massive increase in drug trafficking since the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, especially in the Indian Ocean region, in August 2021. Most of the narcotics are coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. It is having serious effects on the younger generation and society.

Vice Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command, said the presence of Chinese warships, research vessels and fishing boats in the Indian Ocean region has increased manifold in the past decade. Is. He said that all coastal countries should take coordinated action because of the harmful effects of large-scale fishing not in India's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) but downstream. He was answering a question at a seminar 'Arabian Sea Dialogue' organized by the Observer Research Foundation here.

He described the Russo-Ukraine war that began on February 24 as a historic event that triggered changes in global geopolitics and the world economy. In his address, Vice Admiral Singh said the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan after two decades has once again created instability in the region and it will take some time to get the situation under control. “Our ships conduct regular operations to prevent smuggling of narcotics at sea from the Makran coast to the Maldives, and during this time hundreds of millions of dollars of banned drugs are confiscated. In our view, these operations will undermine the foundation of terrorist activities in the region and eliminate their funding.

It is noteworthy that Indian security agencies have seized drugs worth thousands of crores from Maharashtra and Gujarat in the last year. Vice Admiral Singh said that overall the world has seen a more assertive China and this aggressive stance is evident in the South and East China Seas as well as in the Himalayan and the Indian Ocean regions. Referring to the tension between China and Taiwan in the wake of recent visits of senior US leaders, he said that these developments are expected to increase tension in the Indo-Pacific region as well.

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