77 drug peddlers arrested in northwestern Pakistan

Police in Pakistan's northwest Peshawar city have arrested 77 drug dealers who allegedly involved in peddling drugs to educational institutions, police said late Saturday.

Senior Superintendent of Police Zahoor Afridi told media that police conducted a crackdown and arrested the 77 drug peddlers who were supplying ice, slang for addictive drug crystal methamphetamine, to the students and other people in the vicinity of universities and colleges in Peshawar, the capital of the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The officer said that of those detained, nine had been arrested near Abasyn University and Government College in Peshawar while others were detained from areas adjacent to the several other institutions.

"Over six kilograms of ice drug was recovered from them, which had a value of millions of rupees," the police official said.

According to police, the majority of the arrested peddlers were detained earlier and had served in jails, but they were released due to lack of strict punishment in the local laws.

However, police said a law is being drafted to increase the punishment in the sale and use of the crystal methamphetamine.

The Pakistani government has been running a campaign against the drugs affecting the students for the last couple of months.

In December last year, Pakistani Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Khan Afridi alarmed the society, educational institutions and parents by saying that a big number of students in major cities were addicted to drugs especially to crystal methamphetamine.

"On the directives of the prime minister to counter the upward trend of drugs among students, the Interior Ministry has come up with an effective strategy aimed at not sparing anyone pushing drugs and destroying the youth's future," the minister said.