Illegal drug de-addiction centre raided, 28 inmates rescued

Twenty-eight alleged drug addicts were rescued from an unauthorized and illegal de-addiction center, running without proper medicare facilities and adequate infrastructure, following a raid by police and civil administration officials at Fatehgarh Neowan village near here. The rescued inmates of the illegal center were subsequently admitted to a government rehabilitation centre in Srihind, said Senior Superintendent of Police Amneet Kondal on Friday.

Kondal said the police also arrested one of the owners of the illegal center, one Paramjit Singh of Manimajra village, and are looking for its co-owner Jagrup Singh of Ismailpur and others involved in running the unauthorized center. The accused were running the illegal center doubling up as a Gurbani teaching center, she said.

The police conducted the raid along with civil and health department officials at a house in Fatehgarh Neowan village where the center was being run and inmates were kept under the unhygienic condition without any ventilation and facility, she said, adding the center was sealed. As per norms, a de-addiction center should have doctors employed in the ratio of 1:10, two social workers with a masters degree in psychology, staff nurse, ward attendant, security personnel, safai karamcharis and cook, but none of the staff was available there, said, officials.