Chandigarh, Sep 30 (PTI) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday hit back at Union Home Minister Amit Shah after his Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra rally in Jalandhar, asking him to stop using Punjab “as a political target” and answer questions about the drug networks and investigations elsewhere in the country.
Punjab Congress also took a dig at the home minister, alleging that the BJP-led Central government has woken up to Punjab’s drug problem as elections are round the corner and the December 2029 deadline set by Shah to end the menace is “like a long post-dated cheque of a crashing bank”.
In a statement, the AAP said, “The BJP should stop defaming Punjab on drugs and start acting against drugs coming from BJP-ruled states across the country.”
Pointing to the seizure of a huge quantity of drugs by the Gujarat ATS and the Indian Coast Guard on the same day Shah was on the anti-drug campaign in Punjab, the AAP said the recovery has once again put the spotlight on drug routes operating through the coastal state.
“Amit Shah came to Punjab today to give lectures on drugs. At the same time, 526 kilograms of methamphetamine and heroin, worth over Rs 3,000 crore, have been seized in an operation in which Gujarat ATS provided the intelligence. We have been saying that Gujarat has emerged as a major gateway for drugs in the country. This seizure once again shows the scale of the problem. If Amit Shah is serious about ‘Nasha Mukt Bharat’, he should start his ‘Nasha Mukt Yatra’ from Gujarat, not Punjab,” the AAP statement said.
Addressing a rally at Paragpur in Jalandhar to mark the culmination of the BJP’s ‘Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra’ that began from Pathankot on September 18, Shah launched a blistering attack on the AAP government, accusing it of allowing ‘chitta’ (synthetic drugs) trade to run openly. He vowed that the BJP would make Punjab free from the drug scourge by December 2029 if voted to power in the 2027 assembly polls.
The AAP statement said the Bhagwant Mann government has already broken the supply chain networks of drug peddlers and they are fleeing to neighbouring BJP-ruled states. Around 80 per cent of pharmaceutical tablets and capsules available in Punjab originate outside the state, with consignments linked to Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and other states, it claimed.
“The old Pakistan route is no longer the excuse Amit Shah can keep using. Punjab Police has disrupted cross-border supply and is now dealing with an interstate drug network. If drugs are coming to Punjab from other states, Amit Shah should ask the governments of those states what they are doing. Instead, he comes to Punjab and turns the drug issue into a political campaign,” AAP said.
It said the BJP should also explain why its anti-drug campaign begins and ends with Punjab when major drug seizures continue to take place elsewhere.
“If Amit Shah wants a ‘Nasha Mukt Bharat’, he should answer: Why are massive consignments being intercepted on the western maritime route? Why are pharmaceutical drugs entering Punjab from other states? What action is being taken against interstate suppliers? What happened to the Central investigation into the Rs 6,000 crore drug case? These are the questions Amit Shah should answer instead of giving speeches against Punjab,” it said.
Punjab’s ruling party affirmed that the state should not be made a scapegoat.
“Punjab is not asking for lectures, but a coordinated national fight against drugs. Stop making Punjab the scapegoat. Stop protecting political allies from uncomfortable questions. And stop pretending that the drug problem begins and ends at Punjab’s border. If Amit Shah is serious, he should act wherever the evidence leads, including Gujarat and the interstate networks supplying drugs to Punjab.”
In the meantime, state Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring accused the BJP-led Central government of turning a blind eye towards Punjab’s drug problem during the AAP rule.
“Now that elections are round the corner, Shah has woken up to the problem of drugs in Punjab,” Warring said in a statement.
He asked Shah why he has set a long deadline — till December 2029 — to end Punjab’s drug problem.
“Leave aside Punjab, who knows whether the BJP will be in power at the Centre by then, since in all likelihood it will not,” Warring asked, remarking, “It is like a long post-dated cheque of a crashing bank.”
While the AAP government is responsible for its abject failure in controlling the supply and peddling of drugs in Punjab, the Government of India also failed to maintain oversight, Warring said.
Besides, the Centre did not take any visible and effective measures to stop cross-border drug smuggling using drones, he added. PTI SUN RUK
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