The Union home affairs (MHA) has sought a report from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led state government as the issue has taken centre stage in the run-up to the assembly elections due early next year.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is considering a probe into drug cases in Punjab to examine the financial aspects amid the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) demand for the involvement of central agencies, people aware of the matter said.
“We are analysing the drug-related cases. It probed a drug case in Fazilka in which Punjab Congress lawmaker Sukhpal Singh Khaira was named. BJP leaders, including Union home minister Amit Shah and the party chief Nitin Nabin, have targeted the Bhagwant Mann-led government over drug cases. Mann has accused the BJP-led Union government of defaming Punjab over drugs instead of checking the supply through Gujarat’s ports. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case in the Jhota murder. It sent a special team to Mansa for a probe, a day after Shah criticised the AAP government over the state’s drug crisis. Shah urged the Punjab government to transfer two more cases involving the deaths of the Dalit man and Bikramjit Singh, who took on the narcotics trade, to the CBI. Shah this month met the families of the three men during a day-long visit to Punjab. He maintained the Punjab government would be unable to solve two of the cases.
The financial crimes probe agency previously investigated the case of former Punjab police officer Jagdish Bhola in an alleged ₹ 700 crore synthetic narcotics racket. Union home ministry wrote three letters to Punjab’s chief secretary over the October 13 killing of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh, alias Jhota, in Mansa, and the murder of 40-year-old Bikramjit Singh in Batala.
The people cited above said the ED is informally analysing the major instances of drug trade in Punjab and related deaths even as it is yet to register any money laundering case. A decision will be taken soon if we should formally launch a probe or separate investigations in different cases,” said an officer, who asked not to be named. It asked the state government to also provide details of a Dalit man’s alleged suicide after his “public spat” with state minister Harpal Singh Cheema during a government event in Sangrur on September 8.
