Promise to make Punjab drug-free 'farce', says BJP leader; AAP contradicts

Chandigarh, June 1 (IANS) The promise to make Punjab drug-free has once again proven to be a farce as the fifth deadline set by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on May 31 has passed, but the drug situation in the state has not improved, the BJP’s state media head Vineet Joshi said on Sunday.

He said the ground reality is that ‘chitta’ (synthetic drug) is now being sold openly, and home delivery of drugs has become common.

Responding to the BJP’s assertions, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) spokesperson Neel Garg said it has become a party of press conferences, completely detached from the ground realities. He asked the BJP whether they are unaware that in just 90 days, the AAP government has arrested over 14,000 drug smugglers and sent them to jail.

“Are they oblivious to the fact that 8,472 first information reports (FIRs) have been registered under the NDPS Act and that hundreds of encounters have taken place? Furthermore, hundreds of illegal structures built by drug smugglers have been demolished using bulldozers,” he said. Garg highlighted that the BJP might not know how people across villages, towns, and cities -- be it the elderly, women, or youth -- are coming forward to pledge that they will neither consume drugs nor allow their sale.

Not convinced with AAP’s justification, the BJP leader said the war against drugs is failing because the drug supply chain has not been broken. He stated, “Drugs will be eradicated only when the supply chain is crushed. During Covid-19, when the drug supply chain was disrupted, long queues were witnessed outside de-addiction centres. But no such scenes were seen during this campaign against drugs, proving the supply chain remains intact”.

Joshi said the AAP government is presenting hollow statistics to gain applause. For instance, Member of Parliament Malwinder Kang cited a case in Patiala, “labelling a youth as a drug smuggler, while in reality he was an addict undergoing treatment at a de-addiction centre for a year. The FIR mentioned only a non-commercial quantity was found with him”. The BJP leader said the seriousness of the government and CM Mann in fighting drugs could be gauged from the fact that no state-level programmes were held on the last three International Anti-Drug Days.

--IANS

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