Shah Meets Families of Anti-Drug Activists in Punjab; Mann Questions His Intentions
Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited Punjab on Tuesday (October 20, 2026) and met the families of people who lost their lives after speaking out against the drug menace, bringing the issue back to the centre of political debate in the State ahead of the 2027 Assembly election.
Hours before his visit, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government announced that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would probe the murder of Parminder Singh Jhota, an anti-drug campaigner who was killed in Mansa on October 13. Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann said his government stood firmly with Jhota's family and that the case had been handed over to the CBI in response to the family's demand.
The AAP and the Punjab Police had so far maintained that the killing stemmed from “personal enmity”, even as Jhota's family had been demanding a CBI inquiry.
Responding to the development, Mr. Shah said: “Today morning when Bhagwant Mann ji came after celebrating his birthday, he did a good thing by handing over an inquiry to the CBI. I also want to appeal to the Chief Minister, please hand over the other two cases to the CBI as well.”
Addressing a press conference in Ludhiana after meeting the families, the Home Minister named three people — Bikramjit Singh in Gurdaspur, Gurdas Singh in Sangrur and Parminder Singh Jhota in Mansa — and said all three were killed, or died by suicide, because of their campaign against drugs. “I met their families, and I have never found myself so distressed. Meeting these family members and people who were tormented and troubled by the business of chitta [heroin], the situation of Punjab that they described was many times more unsettling than what we used to read in reports in Delhi,” he said.
Mr. Shah accused the AAP government of doing nothing concrete to eradicate the drug menace. “I have come to remind the Punjab government and its leaders that you had promised to end the drug business within three months. But five years have passed and the business is growing day by day,” he said.
On the question of political patronage, the Home Minister said the AAP accuses the BJP of pointing to the ports of Gujarat and Maharashtra. “We have caught up to ₹20,000 crore worth of drugs so far. What do they mean? Should we not catch them? But how do those drugs reach Punjab? It is not possible without political patronage. The drug business and trade of chitta have reached every single village and you have failed to stop it,” he said.
Mr. Mann accused Mr. Shah of playing politics on the issue. In a statement, the Chief Minister said the Home Minister was welcome to visit Punjab whenever he wished, but questioned the BJP's record. “The BJP is propagating that it has come to save Punjab and make it drug-free. I have a few questions for the Home Minister. When your government was in power in partnership with the Akali Dal from 2007 to 2017, and the problem of drugs grew into a major crisis, with drugs arriving in quantities running into quintals, why were you not concerned about saving Punjab then? Why did you not take action?” he asked.
The exchange underlines how central the drug problem remains to Punjab's politics. The State's heroin and opioid crisis has dominated successive election campaigns, and the AAP won a decisive mandate in 2022 on a promise of swift action against trafficking. Officials have repeatedly acknowledged that supply chains run across State and national borders, making the issue a shared responsibility of State and Central agencies.
Both the CBI inquiry and the political argument over responsibility are likely to remain in public focus as Punjab moves towards its next Assembly election.
