Shun drugs or leave state: Arora to drug traffickers

Cabinet Minister and state president of AAP Aman Arora on Thursday warned drug traffickers in the state to either shun the practice of drug trade or leave Punjab.

Advertisement

Arora said this after holding a meeting with the senior administrative and police officials at the district administrative office. A member of the five-member Cabinet Sub Committee formed to combat the drug menace, he reviewed the steps taken by the Jalandhar district authorities to eliminate the drugs from the district. He said the state government had devised a foolproof roadmap under the government’s anti-drug drive ‘Yudh Nashian Virudh’.

Arora, along with Punjab Horticulture Minister Mohinder Bhagat, MLAs Raman Arora, Balkar Singh and Inderjit Kaur Mann, meticulously examined the action taken against drug peddling. Commissioner of Police Dhanpreet Kaur apprised Arora that the Jalandhar police had made significant drug recoveries and arrests in the past year.

The Commissionerate Police registered 207 cases and arrested 431 individuals, while the Jalandhar Rural Police arrested 589 offenders along with massive recoveries and registered 372 cases.

In addition to strict law enforcement, the AAP state chief highlighted the importance of rehabilitating drug-affected youth. He directed the health department to ramp up facilities at de-addiction centres to accommodate more patients in view of ongoing war against drugs. He noted that Jalandhar currently has 25 OOAT clinics with 19,753 registered patients.

Mayor Vaneet Dhir, DC Dr Himanshu Aggarwal, Chairman, District Planning Committee, Amritpal Singh, Chairperson, Improvement Trust, Jalandhar, Rajwinder Kaur Thiara, senior AAP leaders Pawan Kumar Tinu, Dinesh Dhall, Jeet Lal Bhatti, Principal Prem Kumar, Stephen Kler, and senior officials of various departments were also present in the meeting.