Chandigarh – Taking umbrage of the recent media reports on the alarming menace of drugs and the deaths happening due to drug overdose in the state, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Sunam MLA Aman Arora has shot of a letter to chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh urging him to, instead of passing on the buck to union government, to take an urgent call on the growing menace.
In his letter to the chief minister released to the media from party headquarters in Chandigarh on Thursday, Arora said that the menace of drugs that had continued unabated under the nose of the state government in the saddle was worrying. He was referring to the unending trail of deaths triggered by drug overdose in the state, stating that it was the government’s clever ruse just to save its skin by passing on the buck to the centre.
Arora alleged in the letter that the chief minister’s idea to writing to the Prime Minister, suggesting that the union government should come up with a national drug policy, and enforcement of de-addiction in the state to prevent the menace, was nothing short of clever ruse to save its own skin.
Terming the Captain’s letter to prime minister invoking him to pitch in to take on the zombie of drugs to save the youth as a mere eyewash, instead of coming out with a concrete and lasting solution to the malaise takin toll on human lives.
The AAP leader said that though it was a joint responsibility of both the union and the state governments to join hands to tackle the issue of drug of this magnitude, the role of the government led by Captain had been dismal as it had failed to deliver to stamp out the menace within a timeframe even as two and a half years had rolled by since its assuming power. He said that had the government been a wee bit alive to the alarming situation, much could have been achieved, he said in the emotion-charged letter.
Citing an example of Rajasthan, Punjab’s immediate neighbor, which had legalized some of the drugs in the state, but never ever heard of a death due to drug overdose whereas in Punjab instances were a dime a dozen, adding that its another neighbor Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) where the situation was a way more volatile and grim due to sharing border with Pakistan, had hardly had a history death by drug overdose.
Arora reminded the chief minister that his plea to enforce de-addiction in the state with an iron hand to thaw the drug addiction, but mere rhetoric won’t help fetch tangible outcome, he said. He stressed the need for preparing a blueprint of the prevalence of drug addiction and by identifying the pockets more prone it come out with a complete roadmap to strike.
He further added that the subsequent governments had been pushing the nagging issue of drugs under the carpet, giving an alibi that all deaths were not due to drug overdose but due to cardiac and due to some other medical conditions. He said it was now the right time for the state government to take on the menace which had eaten up the vitals of the state besides sniffing of innocent lives in the past.
He through the letter urged the government in the state to take on the menace of drugs eating out the vitals of the state with iron hand, adding that the government needed will power and strength and not a lip service by passing on the buck to save its skin. It needed, instead resorting to piecemeal measures, to launch a door-to-door survey involving the health, police dispensation and civil society, besides preparing a comprehensive and micro level policy to stamp out the menace, once and for all.