Chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday targeted the BJP-led central government and Union home minister Amit Shah, challenging them to answer for their failure to curb drug trafficking during their years in power instead of “exploiting” Punjab’s drug crisis for electoral gains.
Reacting to Shah’s visit to meet the families of individuals who died in incidents linked to the state’s drug menace, Mann questioned the Centre over what he called its failure to stop narcotics at their source, secure the borders and act against trafficking networks. He urged Shah to meet grieving families with genuine sympathy rather than political motives. Mann added that the Punjab government stood firmly with Parvinder Singh Jhota’s family and would intensify its anti-drug campaign.
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Mann questions past BJP inaction
“The Union home minister is welcome to visit Punjab whenever he wants, but the BJP is propagating that it has come to save Punjab and make it drug-free. I want to ask him, when the BJP was in power in partnership with the SAD from 2007 to 2017, and the problem of drugs grew into a major crisis, why were you not concerned about saving Punjab then? Why did you not take action?” he said in a video.
{{/usCountry}}“The Union home minister is welcome to visit Punjab whenever he wants, but the BJP is propagating that it has come to save Punjab and make it drug-free. I want to ask him, when the BJP was in power in partnership with the SAD from 2007 to 2017, and the problem of drugs grew into a major crisis, why were you not concerned about saving Punjab then? Why did you not take action?” he said in a video.
{{/usCountry}}The CM questioned why the BJP-led government at the Centre had failed to act when major drug traffickers allegedly named influential ministers and political figures.
“Your government came to power at the Centre in 2014. Even after that, the drug trade continued, and major drug traffickers named powerful ministers. Why did you not take action then? Why did you not make efforts to save Punjab from drugs at that time?” he asked.
Questioning the BJP’s claims on tackling drugs, Mann pointed to the drug problem in Rajasthan, the presence of gangsters in Haryana and the seizure of large consignments of narcotics originating from Gujarat. “Today, Rajasthan has the highest drug problem, while Haryana has become a nursery for gangsters. Drugs are coming from Gujarat,” he alleged.
The AAP leader said that he had held several meetings with the Union home minister and other authorities, urging them to install anti-drone systems along Punjab’s international border with Pakistan. “I have repeatedly requested you to install anti-drone systems along the 532-km border with Pakistan. You have not allowed the necessary system to be installed. We installed our own system in coordination with the BSF, yet you did not take the required action,” he claimed.
He said that the Centre must fulfil its responsibility of securing the country’s borders and preventing narcotics from entering India rather than using Punjab’s drug problem for political purposes. He urged the Union government to amend and strengthen the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. “People from villages identify and hand over drug traffickers to the police, but the traffickers sometimes get bail from the police station itself. They need to make the law stricter,” he said.
Centre not taking action against pharma units supplying drugs, claims AAP
Cabinet minister Harpal Singh Cheema questioned the Centre’s failure to act against pharmaceutical drug manufacturers operating in BJP- and Congress-ruled states despite repeated appeals from Punjab.
Addressing a press conference, Cheema claimed, “The main sources of synthetic and pharmaceutical drugs flooding Punjab are in states governed by the BJP and Congress, yet the Centre has failed to take decisive action against these units.”
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Cheema said no manufacturing unit of prescription medicines being misused as intoxicants was located in Punjab. He claimed that these factories were operating in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat and the central government must explain why it had failed to act against the sources of this supply chain. AAP Punjab chief and minister Aman Arora also demanded answers from the home minister about the Centre’s “failure to stop drug smuggling” across international border and heroin consignments allegedly reaching Gujarat’s Mundra Port.