Hyderabad, July 9 (IANS) Hyderabad City Police conducted a massive joint cordon and search operation, named ‘Operation Thunderbolt’, in the early hours of Thursday in Mangar Basti to eradicate illicit drug trafficking and anti-social activities.

Armed forces and special teams were deployed for the operation, under the strategic guidance of Commissioner of Police V.C. Sajjanar.

A total of 1,100 personnel from Hyderabad Narcotics Enforcement Wing (H-NEW), Task Force H-FAST, the Central Crime Station (CCS), the CAR Armed Forces, and Local City Civil Police participated in the operation.

The police said that the operation was executed with high tactical precision in the area under the jurisdiction of Habeeb Nagar Police Station.

The extensive sanitisation sweep involved close coordination among various specialised wings of the city police:

The special operation, which commenced at 3.30 a.m., was directly supervised by Additional Commissioner of Police, Crimes & SIT, S.M. Srinivas and Additional Commissioner of Police, Law and Order, Tafsir Iqbal.

Both the ACPs personally participated, monitored, and provided on-spot direction to the forces.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Task Force, Gaikwad Vaibhav Raghunath, remained on the ground to directly supervise the field operations.

Police said 150 sachets of ganja, 32 cough syrup bottles, one kg dry ganja, and liquor bottles were seized.

During the thorough checks, operating teams successfully identified and took several law-breakers into custody, including property offenders, chain snatchers, habitual offenders, and persons with pending Non-Bailable Warrants (NBW).

Fifteen drug offenders and 50 suspect property offenders were among those taken into custody.

ACP Iqbal told the media that they had received information that many individuals in the area were using narcotics and were also indulging in drug trafficking.

Senior police officials warned that the department will maintain a zero-tolerance approach and clamp down heavily on individuals promoting narcotics, drugs, or disruptive criminal elements, adding that strict criminal cases will be registered against all violators to preserve public peace.

–IANS

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