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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

AAP has brought Punjab to its knees. State needs BJP governance

The past week saw the defection of 7 AAP Rajya Sabha MPs, led by Raghav Chaddha and Ashok Mittal, into the BJP. This lays bare the fragility and inconsistency within the party.

It is time to bring a badlav in Punjab. It is the land of the 10 gurus, and of our forefathers, who left behind fields of wheat, rice, and mustard to migrate to the melting pot that is Delhi. This land is plagued by a drug crisis today. The youth of Punjab is caught in the vice grip of “chitta”, the moniker popularly used to define the highly addictive, adulterated form of heroin.

The heartbreaking case of the woman who lost all five of her sons to drug addiction was highlighted in the news this month. A generation of her family has been wiped out by the drug epidemic. It’s the story of many households in rural Punjab today.

Recent reports indicate that more than 7 lakh children in Punjab—aged between 10 and 17—use drugs. Opioids are most abused—an estimated 3.43 lakh children are estimated to be opioid users—with a shift toward synthetic drugs and pharmaceutical pills. A 2026 study on high-risk substance abusers revealed that the mean initiation age is 22.8 years, with 56 per cent belonging to the 20-39 age group.

The Enforcement & Seizure data is shocking. NDPS cases registered under the Yudh Nasheyan Virudh campaign saw a sharp increase of 40 per cent between 2022 and 2026. Heroin recovery spiked by 148 per cent, and crystal methamphetamine seizures went up by 447 per cent compared to the previous five years. The state has the dubious distinction of having the highest conviction rate in the country for drug-related cases at 89 per cent, as well as the highest number of drug-related deaths.

A hymn in the Guru Granth Sahib reads:

ਮਾਣਸੁ ਭਰਿਆ ਆਣਿਆ ਮਾਣਸੁ ਭਰਿਆ ਆਇ ॥ ਜਿਤੁ ਪੀਤੈ ਮਤਿ ਦੂਰਿ ਹੋਇ ਬਰਲੁ ਪਵੈ ਵਿਚਿ........

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