KARACHI, June 26: A huge quantity of narcotics was destroyed on Tuesday at Hawksbay at a ceremony held to mark International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

The ceremony was arranged by the Pakistan Coast Guards under the auspices of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Counter Narcotics, Sindh, according to a PCG statement. The IATF comprises 30 federal and provincial agencies fighting the menace of narcotics in the country.

This year, 23,351.9 kilos of hashish, 185.115 kilos of heroin, 45,301 liquor bottles, 3,623 beer cans, 272,950 gutka packets, 2,000 kilos of betel nuts, and 1,249.4 kilos of potassium permanganate were destroyed having an estimated value of more than Rs100 million, added the statement.

Cases related to an equal quantity of narcotics are pending in different courts of law.

The PCG destroyed 3,616.49 kilos of hashish, 9.85 kilos of heroin, 39,617 liquor bottles, 3,483 beer cans, 272,950 packets of gutka, 2,000 kilos of betel nuts, and 1,249.4 kilos of potassium permanganate.

Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Narcotics Murtaza Javed Abbasi later distributed commendation certificates among the officers and operatives of various agencies who had made significant seizures during the year.—APP