New Delhi, May 13 (PTI) Police raided around 100 locations in Delhi and arrested 31 drug offenders and 12 bootleggers under "Operation Kawach" to combat drug abuse in the city, officials said on Saturday.

The operation is primarily intended to save the youth and children from the menace of drugs, they said.

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"Operation Kawach" was launched all over Delhi to focus on identifying and apprehending individuals involved in trafficking and distribution of narcotics, police said.

It was decided to target both street-level dealers and high-level traffickers to effectively counter drug trafficking, they said.

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A total of 80 police teams consisting of ANTF (which acts as nodal agency for narcotics related matters and coordinates with NCB) and Crime Branch from all police stations of all the districts were constituted to carry out the operations. The ANTF in co-ordination with all districts of Delhi Police carried out a ground-level survey and choose more than 100 potential targets to perform simultaneous raids, police said.

The raids were effectively executed across Delhi during the intervening night of Friday and Saturday. A total of 31 drug offenders were arrested in 30 NDPS cases while 12 bootleggers were arrested in six Excise Act cases, they said.

During the operation, 957.5 grams of heroin, 57.884 kg of ganja and 782 quarters of illicit liquor were seized, police said.

In this year so far, Delhi Police has arrested 534 narco-offenders in 412 NDPS cases and recovered around 35 kg of heroin/smack, 15 kg of cocaine, 1,500 kg of ganja, 230 kg of opium, 10 kg of charas and 20 kg of poppy, they said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)