BATHINDA: Taken aback during his thanksgiving tour of Mansa’s Joga village on Sunday when some youths laid drugs before him to prove the free availability of substance, Punjab health minister Dr Vijay Singla gave police a week to catch the peddlers.
The members of Joga’s youth welfare club took the courage of approaching the minister when he came to the village to thank his voters. Group leader Seera Singh put a small packet of ‘chitta’ (heroin) on the minister’s table and said: “We bought it today, just to show you the reality. We told police in the morning to go and catch the peddlers, who were selling drugs openly. We had high hopes from the new government that it will control this menace but the drugs remain available easily.”
Singla termed the youths’ courage as a mark of ‘badlav’ (change) and said people should do their bit to eliminate drugs. “This government has zero tolerance for drugs,” he said. The villagers said on Monday that rampant drug abuse had made their life miserable and corrupted their youth. Many villages have formed youth clubs to check this trade and those who help the peddlers get bail.
