ED considering probe as Punjab drug issue takes centre stage ahead of assembly polls

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) demand for the involvement of central agencies, people aware of the matter said. The Union home affairs (MHA) has sought a report from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led state government as the issue has taken centre stage in the run-up to the assembly elections due early next year.

The BJP has promised to make the state “drug-free by December 2029” if voted to power.

The people cited above said the ED is informally analysing the major instances of drug trade in Punjab and related deaths even as it is yet to register any money laundering case. “We are analysing the drug-related cases. A decision will be taken soon if we should formally launch a probe or separate investigations in different cases,” said an officer, who asked not to be named.

The financial crimes probe agency previously investigated the case of former Punjab police officer Jagdish Bhola in an alleged ₹700 crore synthetic narcotics racket. 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.

Mann has accused the BJP-led Union government of defaming Punjab over drugs instead of checking the supply through Gujarat’s ports.

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 asked the state government to also provide details of a Dalit man’s alleged suicide after his “public spat” with state minister Harpal Singh Cheema during a government event in Sangrur on September 8.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case in the Jhota murder. It sent a special team to Mansa for a probe, a day after Shah criticised the AAP government over the state’s drug crisis. Shah urged the Punjab government to transfer two more cases involving the deaths of the Dalit man and Bikramjit Singh, who took on the narcotics trade, to the CBI.

Shah this month met the families of the three men during a day-long visit to Punjab. He maintained the Punjab government would be unable to solve two of the cases.

Mann announced the transfer of Jhota’s murder case hours before Shah arrived in Punjab, accepting the demand of his family. He maintained that their fight against drug peddlers is an all-out one.

A pharmacy owner shot dead Jhota, a campaigner against the illegal sale of addictive drugs at chemist shops, in Mansa on October 13.

Shah alleged that people who speak out against drugs in Punjab are either murdered or forced to die by suicide as he visited Punjab for a second time in three weeks.

Nabin last month flagged off the party’s Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra. 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.

Mann has maintained the BJP was unable to win the confidence of Punjab’s people and was looking for one pretext or another to defame his government.

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  Neeraj Chauhan is a senior journalist with Hindustan Times and an investigative reporter specialising in national security, terrorism, organised crime, narcotics, corruption, financial crime and complex investigations. With over 21 years of experience across Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Indian Express and The Pioneer, he has built deep expertise in India’s internal security and law-enforcement landscape. Neeraj has extensively covered India’s principal investigative, intelligence and security agencies, including the NIA, CBI, ED, IB, R&AW, MHA and other central security forces. His work has included deeply reported investigations into terrorism, terror financing, cross-border crime, narcotics trafficking, cybercrime, financial fraud and political and corporate corruption. He has reported on some of the most significant terror attacks and security developments in India over the past two decades, including the Delhi serial blasts, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the 2019 Pulwama terror attack and the recent Pahalgam attack. His reporting has also chronicled the rise and decline of the Indian Mujahideen, the activities and subsequent crackdown on the Popular Front of India (PFI), Islamist extremist networks, the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, insurgencies in the Northeast and Maoist violence. Some of Neeraj’s major breaking stories are in Aryan Khan drug case, Sushant Singh Rajput suicide, interception of a 3,000-kg Afghan heroin consignment worth about ₹21,000 crore at Mundra port, Sri Lanka easter bombings, Aarushi-Hemraj murders in Noida, 2G scam, coal block allocation scam, AgustWestland VVIP chopper deal and major bank frauds and extradition cases involving Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya. His reporting is marked by an ability to cultivate sources, analyse confidential and complex documents, and follow investigations over several years—from the initial breakthrough to chargesheets, trials and international legal proceedings. He specialises in making complicated security and investigative developments accessible while examining their wider implications for governance and public policy. A Chevening South Asia Journalism Programme Fellow at the University of Westminster, Neeraj also spent time at the Financial Times as part of the fellowship. He was also a Robert Bosch Media Ambassadors India-Germany Fellow, studying at the University of Tübingen and working with Der Tagesspiegel in Berlin. He has previously taught investigative journalism and crime reporting as a guest faculty member at the Times School of Journalism. Over more than two decades, Neeraj has established himself as an authoritative voice on India’s national security and investigative landscape, with his reporting closely followed by officials, investigators, lawyers, policymakers and readers seeking insight into some of the country’s most complex and consequential developments.Read More