Chandigarh: Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited Punjab on Tuesday for the second time in 20 days, meeting the families of three people who died in incidents linked to the state's drug crisis, and promised that the drug trade would be wiped out of Punjab by 31 December 2029.
Shah met the family of slain anti-drug activist Parwinder Singh Jhota in Mansa, the family of Bikramjit Singh at Batala in Gurdaspur district, and the family of Gurjar in Sangrur. Before the visit, he accused the ruling Aam Aadmi Party government of pushing Punjab into drug addiction.
Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced that the probe into Jhota's murder will be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal wrote to Shah seeking a CBI inquiry into the killing.
The visit brought three parties into open confrontation. The Congress said the Centre shared equal responsibility for failing to stop cross-border drug smuggling, and asked why Shah had remembered Punjab only after twelve years. The AAP accused the BJP of doing politics over Jhota's death.
Shah's message was aimed squarely at the state's voters ahead of elections. "We will not rest until the drug trade is finished in Punjab," he said, framing the crisis as a test of the state government's will. The AAP countered that the BJP was using grieving families as a stage.
The political stakes are high. Punjab is governed by the AAP, with the Congress and the BJP both trying to reclaim ground. Akali Dal, once the state's dominant force, is pressing the CBI demand to stay in the conversation.
Jhota, an anti-drug campaigner, was shot dead in Mansa, an incident that has dominated the state's politics for weeks. The chemist accused of the shooting was arrested in Rajasthan, and the police said a pistol was seized from him.