In an interaction with Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) held in Kathmandu on Thursday, hostel owners assured of taking steps to control substance abuses. According to SSP Rana Bahadur Chand of NCB, most of the hostel owners that are under the Hostel Association were innocent and unaware about the growing drug abuse at their hostels. [break]
With mushrooming of hostels, many students were found to be taking advantage of government negligence and involved in both drug abuse and illegal trade.
There are over 500 hostels in the Valley, the police said. Kiran Raj Bhandari, president of Hostel Association, said, “We are not satisfied with the sudden and repeated police raids at our hostels. But we know that we have to improve monitoring to prevent our hostels from being turned into drug hovels.”
According to the DSP Prabin Dhital of NCB, the entrepreneurs have requested the police to initiate surveillance with the presence of representatives of the Hostel Association. The association has also blamed the police for disturbing student psychology and creating wrong impression about the hostels.
“Such illegal activities were discovered in just a handful of hostels. That doesn´t mean that all hostels are involved in such activities,” president Bhandari said. During the interaction, NCB informed about the symptoms of drug abusers and other ways to identify those who have been using any hard or pharmaceutical drugs.
Hostel Association also discussed the possibility of using instruments that can detect if one is drugged or not. President Bhandari informed, “If the instrument is cost effective and reliable, we will not make any delay in its use.”
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