10,000 new cops for Punjab’s war on drugs: Bhagwant Mann

Phillaur : Bhagwant Singh Mann skipped the senior officers on Saturday and sat down with the men who run Punjab’s police stations.

The Chief Minister’s instruction to them, delivered at Phillaur with DGP Gaurav Yadav beside him, was to stop waiting for orders and move. Go to the villages. Take people along. Act on every tip. “I have not come here for a formal meeting with senior officers. I have come to meet the SHOs who work at the ground level,” he said.

To back the order, he promised numbers. Punjab will advertise 10,000 police posts next financial year. Another 450 ASIs are being recruited now. And 3,400 men are already in training.

“We have given the police complete freedom to take strict action against drug smugglers,” Mann said. Then he drew the line for his SHOs: “Every complaint and every piece of actionable information must be dealt with seriously, professionally and without fear or favour.”

The campaign has four and a half years behind it. Police have filed 95,644 FIRs under the NDPS Act, arrested 1,27,821 people and seized 7,265 kg of heroin. Property worth ₹375 crore has been attached. Mann still calls this the final fight.

Villagers are doing part of the work. Village Defence Committees have passed on 24,083 tip-offs. Those produced 4,843 FIRs and 6,515 arrests.

But arrests alone will not finish it, Mann told the officers. “The fight against drugs does not end with arresting a drug peddler. We also have to save the person who has fallen into addiction,” he said, asking them to run awareness programmes in schools and colleges.

The supply has not stopped. It comes by drone, over the 553-km Pakistan border, into six districts. “A drone may carry the drugs, but behind every such drone is a human mind with a criminal intent,” Mann said.

For his own force, Mann offered easier leave and faster clearance of pending pension cases. Punjab has also asked the Centre to tighten the NDPS Act.

Chief Secretary KAP Sinha was present.