A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team has arrived in Punjab’s Mansa to take possession of the case files and record statements in connection with the murder of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota, a day after Union home minister Amit Shah criticised the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government over the state’s drug crisis.
People familiar with the matter said a deputy inspector general is leading the team, which first visited the Mansa police station. The CBI has written to the Punjab Police for the transfer of the investigation and all related material, they said.
The CBI team was expected to record statements from Jhota’s family at the Mansa Circuit House as part of the investigation. “The statements are expected to be an important part of the ongoing inquiry,” said an officer. The officer added that forensic experts, drug controllers and other specialists are expected to arrive in Mansa to assist the probe. “Their expertise may help the CBI examine the available evidence and explore all relevant aspects of the case,” he said.
On Tuesday, Shah urged the Punjab government to transfer two more cases involving the deaths of two men, Gulzar Singh (Sangrur) and Bikramjit Singh (Gurdaspur), who took on the narcotics trade to the CBI. Shah welcomed chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s decision to transfer the investigation into Jhota’s murder.
Shah, who was on a day-long visit to Punjab to meet the families of the three men, said the Punjab government would not be able to solve two of the cases. He cited the demands of the families for a CBI investigation and stressed that no accused would be spared, regardless of their influence or position.
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.
This was Shah’s second Punjab visit in three weeks. Assembly elections are due in the state early next year, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) making the drug trade the central theme of its campaign.
BJP chief Nitin 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 and cabinet ministers Harpal Singh Cheema and Aman Arora lashed out at the central government, questioning its actions against synthetic and pharmaceutical drugs.
Mann claimed the BJP was unable to win the confidence of Punjab’s people, and was looking for one pretext or another to defame his government.
On Tuesday, Shah started his tour from Batala, where he met the family of Bikramjit Singh, 40, who was killed on October 15 in an incident allegedly linked to his opposition to drug peddling.
He then went to Sangrur to meet the family of Gulzar Singh, a Dalit daily-wager who died by suicide on September 7. The death reportedly followed alleged harassment and casteist slurs after he publicly questioned finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema during a public event about the illegal sale of drugs in the area.