Punjab talks drugs again. Its children are still paying the price

Home alone, three children, hands interlaced, came down the stairs, fear etched on their faces. And as the youngest, barely seven, managed a scared smile, all my journalistic questions dissolved. That image remains my most enduring memory from a reporting assignment on drugs in Punjab in late 2024.

The house in Badshahpur village in Kapurthala belonged to a man recently out on bail in a case registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. His wife was in prison; his teenage daughter had just been detained after a video of her allegedly selling drugs went viral. As dusk settled and the evening prayers wafted from a nearby gurdwara, the enormity of the crisis struck home. Children like these were the collateral damage. Drugs were devouring Punjab’s future.

This week, that future claimed another victim.

Gulzar Singh, a labourer from Sangrur, consumed Celphos tablets after allegedly being threatened by the local sarpanch and others for questioning a sitting minister about rampant drug abuse in the area. At home, his son, mostly skin and bones, told The Indian Express that he spent every paisa he earned as a daily-wage labourer on “chitta (heroin)”. It was as easily available as “namak (salt)”, he said.

When Udta Punjab was released in 2016, many in the state bristled at what they called an attempt to tarnish Punjab’s image. That outrage has gradually given way to grim acceptance. Today, words such as “chitta”, “goliyan (pills)”, and “sooiyan (injectables)” have become part of everyday language.

Veteran police officers trace the origins of the crisis to Punjab’s geography and its proximity to the Golden Crescent, the major opium producing region spanning Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. What began largely as a transit route for drugs gradually evolved into a far more entrenched narcotics economy, with narcotics and, increasingly, cheaper pharma drugs flooding local markets.

Chemists speak openly about the misuse of medicines meant for pain relief and neurological disorders. A Dehradun-based pharma company discontinued the production of a pill, locally known as the “ghodeyan wala capsule”, after widespread allegations of its abuse.

Failed attempts

Successive governments have promised to rid Punjab of drugs, but to no avail. In 2014, the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government launched the first anti-drug campaign during its tenure. In 2017, Captain Amarinder Singh famously swore on a holy book to eradicate drugs within four weeks. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government came to power in 2022 with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann promising decisive results within a year, but to no avail.

In March 2025, Punjab Police launched Yudh Nasheyan Virudh. The numbers are impressive on paper. Between March 1, 2025, and September 2, 2026, the police registered 59,293 FIRs under the NDPS Act, arrested 696 major traffickers, seized 3,757 kg of heroin and 62 lakh tablets, and recovered Rs 22 crore in drug money.

Taking a cue from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab also began attaching and demolishing properties allegedly built from drug proceeds. Yet voices on the ground insist the supply has not dried up: chitta is as easily available as namak.

Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria, who has walked with Mothers Against Drugs, cut through the noise with the sharpest observation yet: the drug trade “cannot survive even 10 days without the support of the police and administration”.

That uncomfortable truth echoed in court this week. In an affidavit before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the police admitted drugs are available inside prisons. Inmates registered for opioid treatment rose from 2,540 at the time of entry to 15,768. A shocked Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra observed that addiction seems to have multiplied four to five times after incarceration.

The supply networks have only grown more sophisticated.

Today, drones ferry drugs and weapons across Punjab’s nearly 500-km international border. Despite anti-drone systems, this summer witnessed drones making deliveries even in daylight.

Floodwaters have created another route. During the 2023 floods, the police cracked a case involving a trafficker from Jalandhar who allegedly sent three swimmers across the Sutlej to retrieve 50 kg of heroin. The swimmers were reportedly paid between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh for every kilo they ferried. Cops say such consignments became even larger during the floods last year.

Drugs a major poll issue

As expected, with the Assembly elections approaching, drugs are back at the centre of Punjab’s political discourse.

In 2017, the AAP, then in Opposition, gained traction by making drug abuse one of its biggest campaign issues, with Mann ending rallies with his famous “kikli (a ditty)” to drive home the message against the Akali Dal led by the Badals.

Leaders of the Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) made drugs the centrepiece of their speeches during the politically significant Rakhar Puniya rally a fortnight ago. Jailed MP Amritpal Singh had built much of his early popularity around promises of de-addiction centres in gurdwaras.

I had met several families at the gurdwara in his native village of Jallupur Khera who had arrived with drug-dependent relatives simply because they believed “Bhai Sahib” could reform them through faith and discipline.

The BJP, too, is preparing to make drug eradication a major poll plank. Its Nasha Mukt Yatras are scheduled to begin mid-September and culminate in a rally to be addressed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had earlier declared at a Badlav rally in Moga that only his government could wipe out the menace.

Punjab has heard many such promises. The only real change has happened in the nature of the trade itself — more pharmaceutical, more aerial, more entrenched.

The memory of those children walking down the stairs in Badshahpur still haunts me. They were not addicts. They were not accused. They were the real victims.