Tribune News Service
Ruchika M Khanna
Chandigarh, June 18
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday said that his government was ready to initiate new steps to do away with the menace of drugs.
While blaming the flow of cash and drugs into the state in the past three months to be offered as enticement to voters, he said that with the model code of conduct now over, the state government was ready to curb the ‘nexus between some low-level police officials and the smugglers’.
He said that drugs come to Punjab from Gujarat, but the state is being vilified on this issue.
Mann was addressing media persons after holding a meeting of SSPs from all districts and other senior police officers.
“I have asked DGP Punjab to immediately transfer the low ranking officials in each police station. Over 10,000 such officials have been reshuffled. The cutting edge officials have been transferred in the past three days”, he said.
He said that if any police officer is found involved in illicit drug trade, he will be immediately dismissed from service.
Properties of those private individuals involved in the illicit business, will be attached within a month, declared Mann. He added that 10,000 new personnel will be added to Punjab Police.
“Punjab had the longest code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections, as the polls were held here in the last phase. All development works had stopped in the state, we could only implement what was allowed by the ECI,” said the CM.
Mann said that during the election campaign he got the opportunity to be at the ground zero and get a first-hand account of the ground reality.
“It opened my eyes to the problems faced by the public. In order to work on these issues, I called meetings of all bureaucrats yesterday and police officers today, and have given instructions to maintain a good administration- public interface,” he said.
#Bhagwant Mann
#Gujarat
