Interior Ministry asks citizens for help to fight against drug crime

Baku/24.07.23/Turan: Residents of Mirza Davud street and "8 November" avenue, as well as other streets in Khatai district of Baku found themselves in the centre of the city quarter where drugs were illegally sold and consumed. At darkness and at night, cars with sellers and buyers of drugs came to the neighbourhood, in the morning children found used syringes on the roads.

Besides, there are inscriptions on the walls of houses indicating the addresses where drugs are sold. The authors of other inscriptions cursed the spreaders of this contagion. Residents were afraid to go out on the streets at night, children were not allowed out of the courtyards, accompanied to and from school, as the way lay through a wasteland littered with infectious syringes. Parents feared for their children's future, especially since the drug criminals included residents of the same neighbourhood.

Recently, Baku residents informed video blogger Nail Kemerli about what was happening. He shot a video and circulated it in the social network.Khatai district police intervened, and as a result of the raid 7 people, including a woman, were detained. As residents later said in the video blog, the police also detained drug distributors, whose names are known in the district, but citizens do not want to name these people.

"We could deal with the drug addicts ourselves, disperse them from here.  But we know that we will be arrested by the police for violence. That is why the residents of the neighbourhood ask the state to eliminate drug distribution hotbeds, install a night lighting system and surveillance cameras in the neighbourhood to eliminate conditions for drug addiction," the men said in the "Rabochy Prospect" video.

Take the photo here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj-VDlxK7pc

The author of the story, blogger Nail Kemerli did not wish to communicate with Turan to answer the question: why Khatai district police did not react to the difficult situation in the mentioned neighbourhood before the video appeared in the social network.  Elshad Hajiyev, head of the public relations department of the Interior Ministry, answered the same question to Turan.  He said that before the appearance of the above video, residents of the neighbourhood did not address the Interior Ministry with complaints about drug addicts and drug dealers to the police. This was shown by an investigation conducted in the ministry.

"The police are asking citizens to report all cases of offences.  We do not disclose the names of informants, we know that people do not want publicity, do not want to go afterwards on summons to court. Police write in reports that the raid was carried out on a signal from the spot.

Without public support for the police, it is difficult to fight drug crime.  It is necessary to reach the level of European public awareness, where every citizen behaves like a policeman without uniform, reporting any observed violation," Hajiyev told Turan.

According to him, the civic awareness of Azerbaijanis is gradually growing. This year 70% of offences have been detected by citizens' reports.  At the same time, drug-related offences are on the rise. The website of the Interior Ministry says that this year (6 months) 2 tonnes 921 kg of drugs were seized from illegal circulation. This is 946kg more than in the same period in 2022.

Public activity is growing, but not to a proper extent. As E. Hajiyev said, parents of children with drug addiction do not report their troubles to the police, and keep silent when a child sells household items to buy a dose.  Police find out from neighbours when a young drug addict breaks into their house. But it is too late, the disease has developed, it is very difficult to cure drug addiction at a late stage.

"When parents report a sick child as soon as the addict shows himself, we place him in a specialised treatment facility and the child can be cured. We then carry out unspoken monitoring of that child. Thanks to the consciousness of citizens, the police prevent new offences and the relapse of a serious disease," Hajiyev said.-0-

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