PoliticsPunjab
Amit Shah meets families of Punjab's anti-drug campaigners as AAP fires back with questions
The Home Minister began a Dussehra tour of three districts at the Gurdaspur home of Bikramjit Singh, while Punjab minister Aman Arora asked why the border with Pakistan still leaks heroin.
Key points
- Amit Shah met the family of Bikramjit Singh, allegedly killed in Gurdaspur for speaking out against the drug trade.
- He is visiting families in Gurdaspur, Mansa and Sangrur, with 1,200 to 1,300 police deployed.
- AAP minister Aman Arora asked why the Centre cannot secure the 543-km border with Pakistan.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah sat with the family of Bikramjit Singh in a Gurdaspur village on Tuesday, the first stop on a Dussehra tour of Punjab homes where people were allegedly killed for speaking out against drug dealers. Before he landed, the state’s Aam Aadmi Party government had a set of pointed questions waiting for him.
Bikramjit Singh was killed in Mari Panwan village, under Sri Hargobindpur police station in Batala, in an attack that also left Nishan Singh and Gurmukh Singh injured. Shah told the family their pain was beyond words, and said attempts to silence those who speak against drugs would not succeed. The Centre, he said, was committed to finding traffickers and putting them in prison.
He is due to meet other bereaved families in Mansa and Sangrur during the day. Director General of Police MF Farooqui said about 1,200 to 1,300 personnel had been deployed. “We have made very comprehensive arrangements. Full security measures are in place here,” he said in Gurdaspur.
A political tour
The visit comes a week after anti-drug activist Parminder Singh Jhota was shot dead in Mansa, a killing that set off a statewide bandh and put the AAP government under pressure. Shah has accused the Bhagwant Mann government of allowing traffickers of “chitta”, as heroin is known in Punjab, to flourish under its protection.
BJP leader Ravneet Singh Bittu framed the trip in festival terms. “When Ravan is killed, the demon-like ‘Chitta’ would also be killed,” he said, adding that Jhota’s father had said “again and again that if anyone can do justice, it is the CBI”.
AAP’s questions
Punjab minister Aman Arora said the state government welcomed Shah, then turned the drug question back on the Centre, which guards the border.
“Why is the Central Government failing to secure the 543-kilometre international border that Punjab shares with Pakistan?” he asked. He also asked: “Why is it that 3,000 kilograms of heroin lands at the Mundra Port in Gujarat and is distributed across the entire country?”
Arora said chitta and gangster culture had grown in Punjab between 2007 and 2017, when the Akali Dal and the BJP ran the state. “If gangsters and drugs fall under the domain of law and order, what is the situation in BJP-ruled states?” he asked.
He also took aim at state BJP chief Sunil Jakhar’s claim that drugs were not coming across the international border, suggesting they could be coming in from Gujarat instead. And he said the state would hand the Jhota murder case to the CBI, as the family had asked; Chief Minister Mann announced that decision earlier in the day.
Arora urged Shah to order an investigation into the firing at actor Tiger Shroff in Mumbai, saying the shooters were from Haryana.
What comes next
The Home Minister’s meetings in Mansa and Sangrur are expected later on Tuesday. Neither side has said whether the Centre will take up the AAP’s demand for tighter border policing, or whether the BJP will press for central agencies to take over other drug-linked killings.