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’s) demand for the involvement of central agencies, people aware of the matter said.
The Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) has sought a report from the Aam Aadmi Party-led state government as the issue has taken centrestage in the run-up to the assembly elections due early next year. 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. Nabin last month flagged off the party’s Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra.
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. It covered the entire state before culminating in Jalandhar, where Shah, addressing a rally, pledged that if voted to power, the BJP will free the state from heroin by December 2029.
It asked the state government to also provide details of a Dalit man’s alleged suicide after his “public spat” with state finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema during a government event in Sangrur on September 8.
