E-Paper
War on drugs: Punjab Police constable loses job, life to drugs
Gurpreet Singh, 30, of Saleena village in Moga district was found dead in a field with a syringe stuck to his right arm on April 6, 2022
Four years after he got addicted to “chitta (heroin)”, a former Punjab Police constable lost his life to the drug.
Gurpreet Singh, 30, of Saleena village in Moga district was found dead in a field with a syringe stuck to his right arm on April 6, 2022. He had died of drug overdose just a day after he returned from a de-addiction centre.
He is survived by his three-year-old son, wife and parents, while two of his sisters are settled in Australia.
Gurpreet had joined Punjab Police as a constable in 2015 and started abusing drugs while he was posted in Patiala in 2018. Gurbinder Singh Sran, his brother-in-law, says: “He married to my sister in 2019 and after six months, we learnt he had been taking drugs. We got him admitted to a de-addiction centre in 2020. When he came back after six months of treatment, he was back to his old ways. Initially, he would snort “chitta” but later started injecting it. He was again admitted to a de-addiction centre in Pathankot after his cousin died of drug overdose in 2020. They used to take drugs together. As he was a cop, people indulging in drug trade used to offer him “chitta” free of cost.”
“Due to his addiction, he was dismissed from service. His village, Saleena, is near Daulewala, which is the hub of drugs. After 18 months, we brought him home from the de-addiction centre on April 5, 2021, and were planning to organise his son’s birthday party. The next day, we found him dead in the field. He had a job in the police and owned 15 acres of land but everything was lost only because of drugs,” Sran said.
