Chandigarh, May 9 (IANS): Showing zero tolerance towards the menace of drugs, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday directed the police to launch a major crackdown on those selling drugs besides tightening the noose around any political functionary interfering with its anti-drug campaign.
Chairing a meeting of the Special Task Force (STF) team led by its chief Harpreet Sidhu here, Mann said neither political persons nor officers would be spared if found conniving with the drug mafia.
He told the police officers to work freely without any political pressure with a sharpened focus to make Punjab a drug-free state.
Without mincing any words, the Chief Minister said, "To my mind, some police officers might have been working earlier under certain compulsions but all the officers are not alike. However, a few drug peddlers might be getting political patronage in the past but now this shall not happen and all of you should work fearlessly in a direction to wipe out the slur of drugs from the state".
Emphasizing the need to break the supply chain of drugs, Mann asked the police officers to arrest those who are actually selling drugs not the drug addicts as these persons have already become victims of the drug mafia.
He said with this initiative, ultimately the backbone of the supply chain would be broken and Punjab would soon become a drug-free state, adding that this could not be accomplished without the wholehearted support of the police force.
Emphasising his government's priority for the rehabilitation of drug addicts after the crackdown on drug smugglers, Mann underscored the need to bring all those back into the mainstream, who had gone astray in the past.
The Chief Minister said that his government would strive hard to run the drug de-addiction centres across the state efficaciously while ensuring there is no shortage of medicines besides running counselling programmes so that the youth after treatment should not again fell prey to drugs.
Appreciating the Punjab police for valiantly combating the black phase of terrorism across the state, Mann hoped it would now set an example by vanquishing the drug mafia, which has ruined the lives of our youth.