Moga, November 14
Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government was presiding over a war against the youth of Punjab instead of fighting any battle against drugs, even as she asserted chief minister Bhagwant Mann would be held personally accountable for providing a lease of life to the drug trade.
The Bathinda MP, who presided over a massive women congregation at Nihalsinghwala during the course of which the participants assured to take on the drug traffickers themselves, said “lakhs of mothers are mourning the loss of their sons but chief minister Bhagwant Mann is busy in a poster war proclaiming the end of drugs in Punjab”.
Asking Bhagwant Mann why he had not arrested any drug lord or busted any ‘chitta’ manufacturing factory in the last five years, Harsimrat said “you had announced that you knew who was distributing the drugs and where they were being manufactured. Yet you have not taken any action against these messengers of death and instead you have targeted whistle blowers like Mohanjit Singh Sheron by inflicting torture on them”. She also gave the example of the AAP government even refusing to transfer Mansa SSP Vaibhav Chaudhary who had given two arms licenses to the criminally charged medical store owner who had killed anti-drug activist Parminder Singh Jhota in cold blood.
Harsimrat said it was also a fact that Punjab had gained the dubious distinction of achieving the first spot nationally vis a vis drug trafficking under the AAP government as per the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB). She said the second most number of drug overdose deaths had also been recorded in Punjab under AAP rule. She said even if one were to take an average of two drug five drug related deaths in a single village in one year and calculate the total figure for 13,000 villages for five years the cumulative figure would come to a few lakh deaths. “The AAP government is destroying an entire generation of youth”, she asserted.
Asserting that first Capt Amarinder Singh had betrayed the women of Punjab by promising the end of the drug menace in four weeks and now Bhagwant Mann had done the same, Harsimrat said, “the SAD is committed to ending this scourge once and for all”. She said the party had already set the ball rolling by establishing the Mai Bhago di Fauj which had formed ‘jathas’ in villages to keep the drug traffickers away.
She said once a SAD government was formed a special task force headed by a woman DGP would be established to go after the drug mafia. “I appeal to the members of the Mai Bhago di Fauj to keep a record of those selling drugs as well as those who are providing shelter to them. We will take action against all the offenders”. Harsimrat also disclosed that a rehabilitation programme would be introduced for drug addicts and they would be offered skill sets to make a new beginning. She said a new law would also be put into place to deny bail to drug offenders for ten years besides seizing their property and compensating their victims.
Harsimrat appealed to the people to support the SAD while asserting that they had already experimented with the parties of Delhi who had not only sold the State and its resources, but had also led it into an era of drug and gangster culture.
Senior leaders present on the occasion included Rajwinder Singh Dharamkot, Sukhdeep Kaur, Beant Kaur, Narinder Kaur Rania, Jaspinder Kaur Rania, Karamjit Kaur Maddoke and Parwinder Kaur.
