Union Home Minister: Drug trade flourishing in Punjab

Well, let's move on now. In Punjab, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the opposition BJP are at loggerheads over the drug menace in the state. Well, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said that the centre will seek a response from the state government over two incidents. one, where a father consumed poison allegedly under pressure, and the other, where an anti-drug activist was killed in broad daylight. In a social media post on X, Amit Shah said that Punjab is today grappling with a rising threat of drugs, gangsterism and organized crime. He asked Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who will ultimately bear the responsibility for the safety of Punjab's people. Addressing Chief Minister Mann, Amit Shah said that the people of Punjab want results and not publicity. The Home Minister's post said, and I quote him, in Dibrugarh, a father succumbing to pressure and consuming poison, and in Mansa, the broad daylight murder of Parvinder Singh Jota, who had raised his voice against drugs, have raised serious questions about the law and order situation in Punjab. Jota's father has levelled grave allegations against the ruling Aam Aadmi Party government and their MLA. Remember Parvinder Jota, an anti-drug activist, was shot dead by a medical store owner at a busy market in Mansa on Tuesday. Ashwini Kumar, the store owner who fired at Jota when he was being questioned for selling addictive drugs to an elderly man, was subsequently arrested. Reacting sharply to Shah's post, Mann pointed to a drug seizure at a Gujarat port and advised the Home Minister to take responsibility for his own duties. In a post on X in Punjabi, Mann said, and I quote, Amit Shah ji, you should have consulted with your advisers before speaking about me. The BSF has jurisdiction over a 90, that is 50 kilometre range, 3,000 kilograms of chitta synthetic drugs are being seized at the Kandla port in Gujarat before blaming Bhagwant Mann, take responsibility for your own duties. Last month, while addressing a rally in Jalhandar, the remark or the mark or to mark the culmination of BJP's Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra, Shah had accused the AAP government of allowing chitta trade to run openly and vowed that the BJP would make Punjab drug-free by December 2029. He vented to power during his Jalandhar visit on September 30th. Shah had also met some families affected by the drug menace.