Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 5 (IANS): A letter from the Catholic diocese at Thalassery has expressed deep concern about ‘love seeds being planted by terrorist organisations that target Christian girls, stating that the need of the hour is all should pray for the hapless parents who turn helpless when their children fall to such baits.

Archbishop Mar Joseph Pamplani asked the laity to fervently pray for this during the eight days lent that is currently on and awareness should be there so the young minds do not fall into such traps.

The fresh call has come in the wake of increasing number of cases being registered in drug trafficking and also especially regarding students getting hooked to it.

The last time such a statement came out about was when the Pala Diocese Bishop Mar Joseph Kallarangat spoke about ‘Love Jihad' and pointed out that the young generation is being misled by narcotic-loving jihadists.

And after that all hell broke loose in the state and came contrasting opinions to it, when many observed that no such thing exists in the state.

Incidentally, in the recently-concluded special Assembly session, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had informed the Assembly that the startling facts that showed a drastic increase of registering of cases related to drug cases when it jumped four times and sees he this as a very grave issue and will take strong measures to tackle this.

He pointed out that in 2020, there were 4,650 drugs related cases registered by the excise department and police, and in 2021 it reached 5,334 cases and till August 20 this yea, 16,128 cases were registered.

Likewise, in 2020, 5,674 people were arrested, in 2021 there were 6,704 arrests made and till August 29, 17,834 people have been arrested.

He went on to point out that this year so far, 1,340 kilograms of ganja, 6.7 kgs of MDMA and 23.4 kgs of hashish oil have been confiscated.