Chandigarh: Expressing shock and anguish over 14 deaths due to alleged drug abuse in the past about two weeks in Punjab, the state BJP chief Sunil Jakhar on Sunday urged chief minister Bhagwant Mann to wake up from sleep and act tough to save state’s youth from this menace allegedly proliferating right under the nose of his government.
Jakhar said in a statement that Punjab today needed an effective and urgent crackdown against those directly responsible for this heinous crime of killing our youngsters and added that the state government had failed miserably to control drug menace in the state with daily reports of drugs being available easily in villages and towns.
Jakhar reminded Bhagwant Mann of his own Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs publicly disclosing names of those under whose direct patronage drug trade was flourishing in the state and yet no action had been taken ever in the last two years.
"What more information does the CM need to at least order a probe and bring those, however powerful, behind these deaths to book’’, Jakhar asked adding that this silence over disclosures by their own party legislators showed there was something amiss and fishy and this raised suspicion, Jakhar held.
Punjab is in deep grip of drug mafia and this is happening under the full control and guidance of the AAP regime which today lies exposed before all Punjabis, Jakhar alleged.
Urging the chief minister to refrain from any more gimmickry on this serious issue of life and death for so many families, Jakhar held that what Punjab expected from its chief minister is 'governance', and not gimmicks.
Earlier, Jakhar also took to X and said in his post: "Sh Bhagwant Mann ji, last year when a large number of youth died due to drug abuse, instead of taking effective steps you led thousands of school-going kids to do Ardas. Now again 14 cases of drug deaths have been reported in as many days. I urge you to eschew subjecting children to this scorching heat for sake of similar photo-op once again in the name of Ardas. Punjabis do their Ardas on their own, every day’’.
