While endorsing the Supreme Court of India’s observation over the “sluggish” progress in the investigation into some cases of the illicit liquor trade in Punjab, senior Congress leader and Punjab’s Leader of Opposition, Partap Singh Bajwa, said on Wednesday that following the hooch tragedy that took place in Amritsar, Tarn Taran, and Batala in July 2020, in which more than a hundred people were killed, he strongly condemned the Captain Amrinder Singh-led Punjab Government of the time and demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate.
Bajwa said that at that time he approached VP Singh Badnore, then governor of Punjab, seeking a high-level probe into the bureaucratic-police-liquor mafia nexus in the state by the CBI and ED. “I had also requested the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court to appoint a sitting judge to probe the liquor mafia,” he added.
LoP said that even the Aam Aadmi Party government adopted laxity in such cases.
It is very unfortunate that the AAP grabbed power in the state with the false claim of bringing about badlav (change), yet on the ground, nothing has changed.
“Before the assembly election in Punjab in February 2022, the Delhi CM and AAP supremo, Arvind Kejriwal, committed to reining in drug abuse in Punjab within four months of forming the government. Meanwhile, even though the AAP has been in power for eight months, young people, including women, continue to die as a result of drug overdoses in Punjab, “added Bajwa.
Bajwa reiterated his demand for a CBI and ED inquiry into the matter. “Such nexuses (bureaucratic-police-liquor mafia nexus) are still prevalent in the state.
A CBI and ED inquiry is necessary to prevent tragedies such as the Amritsar hooch tragedy from occurring in the future,” LoP said, adding that to break the aforementioned nexus, a judicial probe of an alleged liquor smuggling from Patiala (Punjab) to states such as Gujarat and Bihar, the case that came to light in October, wherein the liquor meant for sale at state vends was allegedly being smuggled to poll-bound
He said that as a Rajya Sabha member at that time, he had requested the state government to formulate rules so that in future tragedies, officers under whose jurisdiction innocent lives were lost would be held accountable for dereliction of duty. “I am still of the opinion that such a law is badly needed to make the administration efficient and accountable,” Bajwa added.