BJP claims 383 drug deaths; Punjab govt says 220

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 26

On International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the state BJP has claimed that 383 youths have died of drug overdose since the Congress government took over in March 2017. However, state government figures account for 220 deaths due to drug overdose till 2019.

Vineet Joshi, senior BJP leader, said his team had record of each death and the same could be verified. “The government downplays the deaths to save its image,” he said.

A senior police officer said only those cases were termed drug overdose deaths where a government lab had confirmed it after chemical examination. “Merely media reports can’t be compiled to claim a certain number of deaths,” the official said.

Joshi claimed that the state government had failed to combat drug menace. He said official data on the unprecedented rush and spurt in cases at de-addiction centres and OOAT clinics in the state had exposed the claims of the government.

He said 23 per cent of the total cases at these centres had come in the last three months of the lockdown. “This suggests that the availability of drugs has been checked owing to curfew, lockdown and ‘thikri pehras’ in villages which led to addicts reaching out in large numbers for treatment at these de-addiction centres,” he said.