Former Punjab Finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who now heads the People’s Party of Punjab, on Tuesday expressed deep concern over reports about increasing numbers of girls and women getting addicted to drugs, which only exposed the dark underbelly of what was once the most prosperous State in the country and was considered to be a role model.
Stark reality
“The issue is not that Punjabis are being portrayed as drug addicts as being made out by the ruling Akali Dal leadership but it is a stark reality staring in the face of the Punjabis. One can imagine the situation when even the women in the family become addicts. The repercussions can be far reaching and too serious for a frontline State like Punjab,” Mr. Badal said reiterating his earlier proposal of evolving a consensus to confront the menace of drugs which had assumed alarming proportions.
Holistic policy
Mr. Badal, who is the estranged nephew of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, said despite the fact that the issue of drugs had come to dominate the political discourse, the State government was still to come out with any holistic policy to deal with such the situation.
Noting that the government gave the impression of launching a campaign against drugs but that was confined to rounding up some addicts only, he also argued that merely blaming Pakistan for smuggling amounted to shifting of blame as synthetic drugs were more prevalent.
