A nearly 164 per cent increase in de-addiction centre inmate data and recent controversies kicked off by cases of open drug sales in rural Punjab have once again highlighted the state’s decades-old drug problem.
Dubbed a publicity failure by the opposition, the AAP government’s “Yudh Nasheyan Virudh” campaign output focuses on the number of seizures, a higher conviction rate between 88-89 per cent and the jump in de-addiction centres.
The Guljar case reported in Sangrur blatantly shows how synthetic drugs were killing people in rural areas and how mafias were being sheltered by corrupt AAP leaders. The government avoids discussing the three significant loopholes that undermine the high-decibel campaign. Secondly, the government avoids speaking on the supply of drugs and smuggling networks that spread deep into Punjab’s soul, i.e., rural blocks. Bigger seizures, as claimed by the state government, while on one hand mean stronger policing, also mean continued inflow on the other. Thirdly, the government offered no clarification on why Punjab still accounts for a significantly higher number of cross-border drug smuggling incidents and high-value narcotic seizures than most other Indian states. That happened despite the deployment of anti-drone systems ( ‘Baaz Akh’ /Hawk Eye systems) and the joint operations with BSF. “Be it the Congress or the AAP government, the promises to end drugs remain on paper, and nothing was done on the ground. AAP’s Yudh Nasheyan Virudh is, in fact, against the victims. State Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhawa’s recent statement about the AAP government’s failure to fulfil the guarantee of eliminating synthetic drugs speaks volumes about the hollowness of AAP’s state-wide anti-drug campaign ‘Yudh Nashian Virudh’. “Standing among the ladies, I accept that we could not fulfil the guarantee to eradicate drugs. It did not end. I want to make it clear that neither our MC, nor MLA, Minister, Speaker, nor the Chief Minister can help the ‘Chitta Wala’. What happens is we can only arrest them; we cannot fire a bullet at them. He used to say that the state produced no drugs, only served as a transit corridor for Pakistan-Afghanistan narco-terrorism.
One, the campaign was launched only 16 months ago. The nature of the drug problem demands that it should have been launched in 2022 itself. The then Punjab Congress Chief, Captain Amarinder Singh, vowed at a rally in Bathinda in December 2015 to wipe out the drug menace within four weeks if he came to power. When Sukhbir Badal was deputy chief minister (2009-17), SAD treated Punjab as a victim, not a source.
Dubbed a publicity failure by the opposition, the AAP government’s “Yudh Nasheyan Virudh” campaign output focuses on the number of seizures, a higher conviction rate between 88-89 per cent and the jump in de-addiction centres. Only the BJP can help Punjab get rid of the drug problem as people have been betrayed by trusting Congress and AAP governments,” Sarin said while confirming that top BJP leadership, including national president Nitin Nabin, will be present when the party launches the campaign. When we catch them, the first person who approaches us is his mother who says, ‘release our son as he is just an addict,'” Sandhawa said in a video. Leader of Opposition Pratap Singh Bajwa, while taking a jibe at the chief minister and criticising the Yudh Nasheyan Virudh campaign, said, “When it could not reform its own Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to give up drinking, how can it claim success against drugs? Mann had even gone inside the Punjab Assembly in an inebriated condition and had refused to take the alcohol test,” Bajwa said.
