Four including Nigerian couple arrested for murder

Police has arrested four persons including a Nigerian couple in connection with murder of a female drug addict who was injected extra dose of drug for resisting sexual assault, in south west Delhi.
"The four accused Uche Chukwu Kalu (39), his wife Ceathi (41), were arrested from Dwarka More while their accomplices Annu (22) and Kannu (21) were arrested from Fatehabad in Haryana, last night. Body of the victim has also been recovered from a drain in Madhu Vihar," said RA Sanjeev, DCP (south west).
Police received a call by a Tagore Garden woman Meetu, 24, at 4.30 am who reported murder of her friend Pooja, 25, by the accused. She told police that Pooja was murdered by the accused by giving her two injections of drugs on protesting sexual assault.

A case under Sections 302,201 and 34 IPC was registered on the complaint by Meetu, at Bindapur police station, he said.
The complainant said that she and her friend Pooja were drug addicts and used to visit the home of Uche and his wife Ceathi at Rajapuri in Uttam Nagar. They had gone for taking drug at their place on December 12 night when the murder was committed, said the officer.
Later two friends of Uche, Annu and Kannu, residents of Fatehabad in Haryana, also joined them. Uche and his friends tried to sexually assualt Pooja and Meetu but when resisted, they were injected with drugs by the trio. Pooja was allegedly given two injections which resulted in overdose and her death.

During interrogation, the accused admitted that they had consumed drugs and given drug overdose to the deceased when she resisted the sexual assault on her. They also disposed of the body to eliminate the evidences.

Uche and Ceathi came to India in 2010 for garment business and stayed in Mumbai for some time and later shifted to Delhi. They had met Meet and Pooja in the clubs and pubs and befriended them.
(REOPENS DEL58)
The findings also indicate that there is a huge illegal market of opioid drugs in Punjab. The study provided data on average expenditure on opioid drugs incurred by the opioid dependent persons per day.

"After multiplying the figures on expenditure with the estimated number of dependent users in the state, we can project that opioid dependent people are spending around 20 crore rupees per day on opioid drugs. This amounts to an annual expenditure on opioid drugs to be about Rs 7,575 crore," it says.
The report also states that evidence-based and preferred treatment option OST is scarcely available to the affected people in Punjab.
"Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST, which involves providing an opioid medication like buprenorphine to the patients on a long-term basis) is the most evidence-based treatment modality which has been endorsed by the United Nations and the World Health Organization as well as the Indian Psychiatric Society. In Punjab, less than 10 per cent of patients have received OST 'ever'," it says.

Findings show that opioid dependence is no longer concentrated only in some urban areas and has spread across the state.
In all the surveyed districts, estimates of opioid dependent people run into thousands. In fact, across the state, about 55 per cent of opioid dependent population belongs to rural areas.
Experts, to deal with this, have recommended healthy mix of short-term and long-term strategies, inter-sectoral coordination among various stakeholders.
Among short term strategies it would be crucial to strengthen the treatment services for opioid dependent people. Relying on the singular approach of de-addiction centres is unlikely to be helpful, since opioid dependence is known to be a chronic, relapsing disorder.

"In this respect, this condition is much similar to diabetes or high blood pressure (which require long-term management) as opposed to malaria or typhoid (which can be managed by short bouts of treatment).
"Thus, the state needs a judicious combination of multiple strategies that includes (a) providing both short-term (detoxification) and long-term treatment (such as OST), and (b) providing treatment at both outpatient as well as inpatient settings," the report says.
Consequently, it would be imperative to shift the focus from 'de-addiction centres' (providing in-patient services) and to expand the basket of services by establishing 'Drug Dependence Treatment.