Amritsar, February 1 – Expressing grave concern over rising drug circulation in Punjab, Governor Punjab Banwarilal Purohit has asked DGP Gourav Yadav to remove and black sheep from the police department having any connivance with drug peddlers.
During interaction with the media here today in the presence of DGP and Chief Secretary Punjab Vijay Kumar Janjua told them not to spare such officials having any involvement in the State in the circulation of drugs and making the young generation addicted.
Governor said, “I am worried about the State, especially about the future of the young generation who are being pushed into drug addiction by drug peddlers. This worry put me in the border districts of Punjab to interact with the inhabitants living at the Indo-Pak border to have first-hand information about the problem being faced by them”.
Governor told chief secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua and DGP Gourav Yadav Punjab in the media interaction, “ The present Government in the State has good relations with the Centre Government. If the State Government feels any kind of help should ask the Union Government for help to tackle the drug menace in the State. Drug flow in the State is the issue of national security, creating threat for the nation’s peace”.
“ I met the one of the village School Principal who told me that drugs are available in the village as toothpastes in all the grocery shops. It’s a failure of the Police department if drug circulation is not stopped forthwith”, he quipped.
“Pakistan is our enemy which can’t afford direct war with India hence choose proxy war by pushing drugs to India. In this regard, today I also held a series of meetings with all the intelligence agencies including BSF, Army, Punjab police and sister agencies and got first hand inputs about drug smuggling from Pakistan then flowing in the local area”, he added.
“Time has come for us to come out from the deep slumber to face drug challenges, otherwise everything would be destroyed and nothing would be left to inherit to the coming generation. So there is dire need to create defence/self-help groups in the villages as well in cities to keep hawk eyes on drug smugglers. At the same time I asked the DGP to direct its officers to listen to everybody when people come with complaints against the drug mafia”, he quipped.
“if nobody listens to the complaint, a direct petition could be sent to me, as I personally go through all the documents which are addressed to me, especially when coming from the border districts of Punjab. Here I do understand that this is a weakness of the State Government if drug menace has gone out of control,” said he.
