NCRB data bring Punjab in spotlight yet again for highest number of NDPS cases
Saturday | May 17 2025 | 10:03:58 AM
Saturday | May 17 2025 | 10:03:58 AM
New Delhi, August 30
The recent data released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has brought Punjab in the spot light for recording highest number of drug seizure cases yet again last year.
The cases lodged under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act are highest in Punjab followed by Himachal Pradesh as the second highest.
As per details, Punjab recorded 32.8 % crime rate (per lakh population) in 2021, which was the highest in the country. As per the NCRB report, the projected population of Punjab was 304.04 lakh in 2021 and there were 9,972 cases of NDPS Act reported in the state during the year.
The report further showed that Himachal Pradesh with a population of 74.06 lakh people as per NCRB ended second on the list in the same category, notching a crime rate of 20.8 per cent. As per the report, 1537 NDPS Act cases were reported from Himachal Pradesh.
Himachal was followed by Arunachal Pradesh that reported NDPS Act crime rate of 17.2%, followed by Kerala (16 per cent), Uttarakhand (15.4 %) and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (12.5 %).
The lowest crime rate under NDPS Act in 2021 was reported from UT Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (0.5 percent), followed by the states of Gujarat (0.7 percent) and Bihar (1.2 percent), as per the NCRB report.
Of the total 9,972 NDPS cases in Punjab, 5,766 cases were related to possession of drugs for trafficking, translating to 19% of crime rate in the sub-category, which again was the highest among all states and UTs. On this sub-category list too, Himachal Pradesh took the second spot (14.7 %), followed by UT Jammu and Kashmir UT (9.9 %).
With 4206 cases of possessing drugs for personal consumption, out of the total NDPS Act cases lodged, Punjab (13.8 % crime rate) was also among the top three states in terms of crime rate in this sub category after Kerala (14.3 %) and Arunachal Pradesh (14.2 %). At a crime rate of 13 % Uttarakhand was at fourth place in this sub-category, as per the report.
