Punjab BJP chief seeks judicial probe into drug money trail

Chandigarh, June 16 Punjab BJP President Sunil Jakhar has written to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann demanding a high-level judicial probe into the drug money trail in the state under the supervision of the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Jakhar raised concerns about the political and bureaucratic patronage enabling the flourishing of drug cartels in Punjab.

“The recovery of narcotics in Punjab goes into several thousands of crores of rupees, which underlies the rot that exists. It cannot be dismissed as a mere coincidence that at the same time, the fortunes of so many Punjab politicians have turned in the last few years. MLAs who would come on cycles now own luxury cars worth crores. Many have farm houses spread over acres,” he wrote.

“The flow of money has to be established to catch the big fish and arrest the end beneficiaries, be it politicians across party lines or officials. Without this, the government’s claim in its fight against drugs in Punjab remains a farce,” Jakhar added.

His letter comes a day after the AAP government claimed that the properties of two notorious drug smugglers were demolished in Ludhiana. The operation was carried out by the authorities of the Municipal Corporation Ludhiana with the support of the Ludhiana Commissionerate Police.

Special Director General of Police (Law and Order) Arpit Shukla said the operations were part of the government’s intensified crackdown on narcotics networks, ensuring that criminals not only face arrest but also lose their unlawfully acquired assets.

With the demolition of these two properties, 126 properties, constructed by drug smugglers using ill-gotten money, have been demolished since March 1, he said.

In the first operation, a bulldozer was used to raze the house of a notorious drug smuggler identified as Gurpal, located at Amarpura in Ludhiana. In the second operation, the house of a woman drug smuggler identified as Rajinder Kaur, alias Rozy, located in Hero Suman Nagar in Lohara village in Ludhiana, was demolished using a bulldozer.

Earlier, state BJP chief Jakhar accused the government of turning into “commission agents for real estate houses” and said Chief Minister Mann and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal are acting as land aggregators.

“The AAP regime is colluding with real estate developers to illegally usurp the prime agricultural land of Ludhiana by hoodwinking and cheating the innocent farmers. People of Ludhiana on June 19 will cast their ballot against this move to illegally acquire their land and they would weed out AAP’s corruption,” Jakhar had said.

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