State not land of addicts, will bust myth: Sukhbir

Manish Sirhindi

Tribune News Service

Patiala, June 22

The state government has come out in defence of the proposed dope test on aspiring policemen as it is in the line of fire from rival political parties in the state, who are saying that the decision substantiates the prevalence of high drug abuse.

But the SAD-BJP government is claiming that the results would rubbish ‘rumours’ of Punjab being a “land of drug addicts.”

A total of 5.39 lakh aspirants, who have applied for 6,000 posts in the Police Department, will be undergoing the dope tests. It will be the first time in the country that a state government has decided to conduct the tests.

Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said that while no drug addict were found during the Army recruitment in the past three years, the tests during police recruitment would only “re-assert the reality.”

PPCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh said as per a more recent survey, 78 per cent of the population in the state is hooked to drugs as against the figure of 70 per cent claimed by Rahul Gandhi.

However, Cabinet Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra, who also came out in full force to back the government’s decision, said the results of these tests would prove to the world that Punjabis were not drug addicts.

He said it was under a planned conspiracy hatched by rival political parties that Punjab was being projected as a state of drug addicts.