Jalandhar/Amritsar: Sarabjit Kaur from Dhol Kalan village in Amritsar describes synthetic drugs as “a curse on her family and Punjab’s future generations.” For the 48-year-old, battling drug addiction’s grip on her husband and elder son has been a constant struggle. Hoping to get at least one of them cured, she admitted her elder son Rinku to what she thought was a legitimate de-addiction centre last November.
On 29 January, she received a call from an unknown number. It was Rinku calling from a hospital to tell her that the Amritsar district administration had raided the centre—and “rescued” at least 14 people, including him.
He wasn’t the only one. Authorities in Punjab have rescued at least 32 people since January this year from two illegal de-addiction centres they say were exploiting desperate families struggling to help their loved ones deal with drug addiction. Over the years, many such unlicensed centres have sprung up across the state promising a “cure” for drug addiction.
But most of them merely confine patients in squalid, prison-like conditions without proper medical care or oversight. They don’t follow state guidelines and in some cases, legally-run centres even sell de-addiction drugs at inflated prices in the open market.
Home to nearly 12 lakh registered ‘drug addicts’, predominantly addicted to heroin—popularly known as ‘chitta’ in the state—Punjab’s de-addiction and rehabilitation efforts have thrown up mixed results. While the government runs 36 de-addiction centres across all districts, it’s the 177 facilities run by private players that people turn to more frequently.
The issue of illegal de-addiction centres first came into prominence in 2018 when the then Ropar (Senior Superintendent of Police) SSP Swapan Sharma rescued 200 inmates from an illegal de-addiction centre in Chamkaur Sahib.
The inmates, most in their late 20s or early 30s, were allegedly thrashed at the centre, and some had their limbs broken. An internal assessment of the state’s health department reportedly found around 50 such centres running in late 2018. The issue of illegal de-addiction centres later reached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which in 2019 asked the state government to frame stricter Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
Since 2024, the civil administration and police have shut down 21 illegal centres across central districts, including Amritsar, Jalandhar, Mohali, Patiala and Bathinda. This year alone, authorities in Amritsar and Khanna districts have busted two centres operating in subhuman conditions, rescuing 32 people. Despite the crackdown, senior officials in the health and police departments acknowledge that the menace is far from over.
The proliferation of illegal de-addiction facilities continues to haunt families, particularly those where individuals addiction to drugs are unwilling to seek treatment.
“The issue of these illegal de-addiction centres is the story of the gap between demand and supply,” said a senior Punjab government official who did not wish to be named. The official added that expensive treatment protocols in private and few government centres are one reason why families turn to illegal de-addiction facilities; another is referrals.
“This makes them a compelling option for family members because they don’t have to go through strict protocols such as consent by patients themselves,” said the official.
One of the centres that police raided last September was the Akal Sahaye Rehab centre in Kohar Kalan village which the Jalandhar district administration began investigating following a confidential complaint by a former inmate to the state human rights commission.
He alleged that the centre was running without a license and patients were facing brutal physical and mental torture to the extent that they needed psychiatric treatment.
When Jalandhar Rural Police reached the centre, they found no signboard. They only saw a locked shutter that wasn’t strong enough to muffle the sounds from inside.
The centre’s manager claimed the owner’s relative was staying inside, but the police personnel had grown suspicious. They went in to investigate and saw 17 people locked in a large hall with no light or ventilation. “The door and frame were tied with iron chains. It was closed like a prison, and when the iron door was opened, there was a large, closed hall with no windows, grilles or skylights for air ventilation,” the police noted in its FIR, a copy of which ThePrint has seen. “There was no cot, bed or water cooler according to the summer season, and in this closed hall, 17 people were kept locked under a fan,” it added.
One victim rescued by the district administration recalls the appalling conditions: no bed, no proper food and no medical practitioner.
“We were beaten up for having extra food, for talking among each other, for not obeying even trivial instructions,” the 20-year-old, who now works as a social media video editor in Jalandhar City, told ThePrint.
Police, who estimated that the centre had been running for about six months before it was busted in September, booked its owner, Sarabjit Singh, as well as manager and attendant Amardeep Singh and Jaskaran under various sections including wrongful confinement.
It was the third such bust in recent months. In March, Khanna district police dismantled a similar illegal drug de-addiction centre at Neelon Khurd village in Ludhiana. A total of 17 people were rescued from the facility.
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Life inside an illegal de-addiction centre
Months before the raid at the Jalandhar centre, a panic-stricken 36-year-old mother in Malsian village rushed to admit her son to the facility. The trigger was a message from her son’s friend: drug addiction was making him increasingly aggressive.
Desperate to save the boy, the family didn’t assess any de-addiction facilities and went straight for the centre in Kohar Kalan village recommended by the son’s friend. “We got so anxious, lost our mind over the idea of losing our son to drugs,” the mother told ThePrint.
She was finally allowed to meet him two months after the admission, in September, since meetings were denied in the name of “administration of medicine and discipline of isolation required for de-addiction”.
“When I met him, he started pressing my hand abnormally. When I drew closer, he whispered to me, ‘mujhe bacha lo mumma, ye log maar denge mujhe’ (please save me, mother, they will kill me here),” the mother told ThePrint.
“That message gave me sleepless nights. In a few days, I got a call from him that the centre was busted and that he could come back home after the doctor’s advice. I regret even today that I did not trust my child and got influenced,” she added.
Her 20-year-old son remembers the centre as a stifling space with no fans or windows, where food was rationed and communication was controlled.
“We were beaten up regularly in the name of punishment for drugs. If anyone took an extra chapati, they were beaten up by three people. It’s not the way to treat anyone. There was no doctor. Twenty people were in the same room. There was no bed,” he told ThePrint.
While the woman from Jalandhar Rural district agreed to pay Rs 16,000 for two months, Sarabjit Kaur shelled out Rs 15,000 for a two-month de-addiction programme.
Both mothers also recalled that, when they tried to speak to their children on a video call, an attendant sitting beside the boys didn’t allow them to speak freely about the centre or their overall well-being.
SOPs in place & what’s slowing down probes
According to health officials, what works in favour of these centres is the lack of scrutiny of a patient’s history of drug addiction and no fear of action by government agencies.
They charge Rs 6,000 and upwards per month and offer de-addiction and rehabilitation programmes lasting up to six months.
State regulations established in 2020 require every registered de-addiction centre to provide a unique identification number to each new patient, linked to their Aadhaar or mobile number. The computerised patient registry system must be integrated with the state’s central registry software system under the state department of health & family welfare to prevent patients from obtaining opioid medication from multiple sources.
Following registration, patients must be evaluated by a psychiatrist and counsellor to determine the extent of their addiction and whether a patient should be admitted for de-addiction or can be managed through OPD treatment at Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT) clinics.
Moreover, every centre must provide one bed for each patient, adequate space between beds in the facility and sufficient ventilation. Under the rules, they must also prominently display the facility’s name in the local language at the gate or on the building.
However, none of the three centres raided by the district administration and police in recent months met any of these requirements. In most cases, parents weren’t aware of these regulations and just went by word of mouth. Rinku’s mother, Sarabjit Kaur, for instance, chose a de-addiction centre based on a reference from the village pradhan, whose relative was known to the people running the facility. “I became so hopeless about his prospects. His prolonged addiction, easy availability of drugs and overall atmosphere in the village make it all more conducive to addiction for him,” she told ThePrint.
This wasn’t her first attempt to steer her son away from addiction. He once escaped from a government de-addiction centre in Amritsar, and another stint at a Pathankot centre proved ineffective. When she heard about the facility through a relative of the village sarpanch, she decided to explore the option. “I was promised a cooler, separate washroom and room for my son at Rs 15,000 per month. Initially, they prescribed a six-month plan; I refused on account of it being unaffordable and agreed upon a two-month plan,” she said.
She said she also chose the centre because admission required minimal scrutiny and verification, and unlike official facilities, did not require her son’s near-mandatory consent.
“In general, government facilities or other private facilities don’t admit patients without the consent of the addict. I wanted to do it for my son; they did not need such processes. I specifically asked them not to beat my son because all of that has not worked,” she said.
Samrala DSP Singh said people were paying Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000 a month at the Khanna illegal centre which was run by a local resident who had returned from Ukraine after working in the war. Despite the raids, probes have been slow because of many challenges.
Jalandhar Rural Police and district administration officials raided and dismantled the centre in the Shahkot area last September, arresting the manager and attendant while the owner secured anticipatory bail from a local court. The investigating officer recorded statements of all those rescued, but police say that only those free from addiction and drug abuse can be considered reliable witnesses during trial proceedings. Police have yet to file a chargesheet against the accused and the investigation is still underway.
Similarly, city police and district officials cracked down on the centre in Amritsar in January but are having trouble recording statements from the rescued inmates. “We find that 99 percent of these victims are drug addicts, and hence, they don’t come forward before police officers. Hence, the probe goes nowhere, and the problem does not get solved,” a police officer dealing with one such case told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
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Monopolising de-addiction
Some legally-run private centres also have their share of problems. Health officials have raised concerns about malpractice at some centres. These range from sale of de-addiction tablets obtained at subsidised prices in the open market at exorbitant rates, to violations of SOPs regarding maximum duration of patient admissions or standard treatment protocol.
Punjab’s private de-addiction centres are a popular choice among the affluent. Unlike state-run centres, private facilities promise round-the-clock access to psychiatrists and medical counsellors as well as private rooms.
In January, the former chief of the state’s vigilance bureau raised an alarm in a letter to the state’s chief secretary, K.A.P. Sinha, urging a review of the state’s policy governing private de-addiction centres. Sinha accused a handful of businessmen of monopolising the private centres and defeating the very purpose of extending the facility to the private sector.
The letter followed the arrest of a Chandigarh doctor, Amit Bansal, for malpractice at the de-addiction centres he owned. At the time of arrest, his firm was operating 22 centres.
Bansal was accused of selling drugs used in de-addiction—Buprenorphine and Naloxone—at inflated prices outside the centres to people not registered with the government’s de-addiction programme. Bansal’s arrest came after at least two similar cases of malpractice at his hospitals in Jalandhar Rural and Ludhiana came to light. The erstwhile Special Task Force (STF) of Punjab Police, which has now been revamped as the Anti-Narcotics Task Force, had in 2022 arrested two employees of Bansal’s Simran Hospital and recovered 4,000 Buprenorphine pills from a two-wheeler owned by the hospital.
The vigilance bureau alleged in court that police did not take any action while 23,000 more pills were recovered based on confessions from Bansal’s arrested employees. Court documents suggest drug inspectors allegedly falsified reports to shield Bansal’s centres from official scrutiny.
Although an STF team and Rooppreet Kaur, a drug inspector, inspected one of his de-addiction centres, Simran Hospital, where 4,610 pills seemed missing, the vigilance bureau said Kaur didn’t disclose the exact number of missing tablets in her report.
The vigilance bureau also alleged in court that Bansal bribed health department officials to prevent any action over the missing tablets.
The bureau further said that despite the director of health & family welfare issuing a suspension order in October 2022, the facility was not sealed by local health department officials, allowing Bansal to argue that the missing tablets were lying in a rack in the hospital and were later returned to a Dehradun-based firm from where they were procured.
“All this was possible only due to the collusion of Dr Amit Bansal with officials of the health department as the STF team on 05.10.2022 conducted thorough inspection of Simran Hospital and on the spot, every opportunity was given to the employees to provide the record with regard to missing pills, but no such record was ever presented by them,” the vigilance bureau alleged in the court, according to court documents reviewed by ThePrint.
Rooppreet Kaur’s counsel argued in court that even if any allegation is attributable to her, at most it would amount to negligence, which does not justify prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act, adding that had there been any malafides on the part of her part, she would not have annexed the original report, which clearly mentioned the 4,610 missing tablets. The high court on 27 March asked Rooppreet Kaur to appear before the vigilance bureau.
Another hospital owned by Bansal in Jalandhar Rural named Sehaj Hospital came under the authorities’ scanner after videos of drug sales surfaced online, catching the attention of the chief minister’s office (CMO). Following a complaint, the Jalandhar Deputy Commissioner (DC) launched a probe. As many as 144,000 Addnok-N pills were found allegedly missing from the stocks of Sehaj Hospital, and an FIR was registered against Amit Bansal.
During the inspection, the committee allegedly found 102 files signed by the same persons, suggesting duplication of records and forgery, while as many as 154 files were allegedly found to be signed in advance without any prescription.
In another case, the Jalandhar deputy commissioner’s order to freeze the credentials of Bansal’s hospitals on the de-addiction platform was not implemented.
Court records show that the prosecution accused Bansal of colluding with health department officials to create a fake record about the missing pills from the hospital and preparing documents to claim their return to the same Dehradun-based firm.
Jalandhar Police filed a closure report, which the Jalandhar DC refuted in court and ordered a probe. However, the probe has yet to begin, and the closure report is still waiting to be accepted or rejected before the local court, police officials told ThePrint.
In the wake of Bansal’s arrest, the directorate of health & family welfare in Punjab cancelled the license of all 22 centres owned and run by Amit Bansal.
Bansal’s counsel argued that the legal proceedings were initiated against him to close the de-addiction business.
“The petitioner did not derive any illegal benefit as he never indulged in the practice of selling narcotics drugs missing from his de-addiction centres. The allegations of involvement of petitioner in corruption are false and are not supported by any cogent evidence. In order to nail down the petitioner in a false case, the presumption-based allegations have been made against him,” according to SAS Nagar court documents taking note of the arguments presented by his counsel.
This dark reality of private de-addiction centres was laid bare by the former vigilance bureau chief’s letter to the chief secretary, highlighting glaring lapses in their operational models that had undermined the very purpose of establishing de-addiction centres.
‘Yudh Nasheyan Virudh’
The state government insists it’s trying to close any policy loopholes. A senior bureaucrat privy to the policy planning told ThePrint that following several complaints against private de-addiction centres, a five-member cabinet sub-committee chaired by Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema has been debating ways to regulate them.
“Vigilance bureau has flagged profiteering through these centres by monopolies, and the government is working on a policy to fix certain number of centres a particular person can have,” another official told ThePrint. “We are working on breaking the hegemony of these big players by limiting the ownership to a maximum of four to five centres.”
The government has launched a renewed campaign, Yudh Nasheyan Virudh (war against drugs), to deal with the crisis.
After attending a ‘war on drugs’ meeting with district-level officials in Fatehgarh Sahib on 4 March, Punjab’s Health Minister Balbir Singh said accountability of private de-addiction centres would be fixed and that managers of these centres would be mandatorily asked to submit regular status reports with authorities. “Issuing strict instructions to the managers of private drug de-addiction centers, the health minister said that these centres are running for drug de-addiction, not to sell narcotic pills,” the Punjab government said in a statement.
But for families like Sarabjit’s who are on the frontline of this war on drugs, time is a luxury they cannot afford. As Sarabjit put it, “There is nothing left for us anymore here. Our land has been sold. We have lost everything to drugs. We had to sell the house, AC, fridge. I took a loan to send my younger child away from this atmosphere, which is my only hope.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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