To dodge the anti-narcotic police amid the crackdown on drug dealing in Mumbai, peddlers have started recruiting teenagers, including school-going students, to do their dirty work. For peddling their contrabands, the dealers pay some children in cash, and get others hooked on narcotics, a Crime Branch officer said. 

The senior Crime Branch officer said peddlers are training teenagers, especially those from the slum pockets of the city, to conceal small drug packets in their school bags, undergarments, socks, hair, etc. “The slum-dwelling teenagers are easy targets for the peddlers,” a source told mid-day. Most of those being targeted by the peddlers are school dropouts and are aged between 15 and 17.