हिंदी
— (Says AAP ministers and MLAs openly patronizing drug mafia but home minister not taking any action against them)
Chandigarh, October 12 –
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today held chief minister Bhagwant Mann directly responsible for the astronomical rise in drug abuse in the State and demanded his immediate resignation as home minister for failing to control this menace.
In a statement here, the SAD president said “the Punjab and Haryana high court’s observations in a drug case today make it clear that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ministers and legislators are not only patronizing drug traffickers but actively stopping the State enforcement agencies from acting against them. It is a sorry state of affairs if the State DGP stands helpless in front of the high court and has no clear answer as to why police witnesses in NDPS cases were not appearing in court to give their statements.
Asserting that only the ruling establishment and its ministers and legislators could stop police witnesses from deposition against the drug mafia, Mr Sukhbir Badal said “this has not happened for the first time. The court has also observed that this is a regular occurance. This is a clear indictment of the home minister and his failure to control the drug menace which he had promised to eradicate within days. Instead of making any officer a scapegoat in this case, the home minister should own responsibility and resign forthwith”.
Mr Badal also asked the chief minister to tell Punjabis why he was not taking any affirmative action against drug traffickers. “Earlier also the high court had emphasized that no action was being taken against the king pins in the drug trade”. He pointed out how even Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit was forced to forward information about sale of drugs in 66 liquor vends in Ludhiana to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) after the chief minister failed to take action in the case despite a formal complaint. “The very fact that all the liquor vends in which drugs had been seized were allowed to reopen after one month proves that the AAP government is hand in glove with the drug mafia and instead of taking action against it is promoting their heinous trade”. He also pointed out that the State Governor had also noted following a visit to the Indo-Pak border that drugs were now available in grocery shops.
Asserting that this attitude was not confined to the issue of drugs alone, Mr Badal said the AAP government was also patronizing the sand mafia. He gave the example of how a decorated police officer who had arrested the brother-in-law of Khadoor Sahib Legislator Manjinder Singh Lalpura had been shunted out from Tarn Taran even as the accused was given VIP treatment and did not spend a single day in jail before being bailed out. EOM
