Patiala: Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) functionary and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday said that if voted to power, her party would bring in a new law to deny bail to drug traffickers for 10 years.Speaking about the proliferation of drugs in Punjab during her ‘Maawan Dheeyan Insaaf’ campaign here and at Samana, Harsimrat said, “While our youth are dying due to drug overdoses, women also have become unsafe. Incidents of chain snatching and robberies have increased.”She said chief minister Bhagwant Mann was directly responsible for the sorry state of affairs as he had failed to fulfil his guarantee to eradicate the drug menace in four months.The parliamentarian claimed that women were approaching her, stating that instead of acting against the drug traffickers, the AAP govt was taking action against the whistleblowers. “The situation is such that aata (wheat) is not available, but there is home delivery of chitta (heroin),” she said.Harsimrat said even at a time when national statistics had revealed that Punjab was No. 1 in drug trafficking and No. 2 in drug overdose deaths, the AAP was still trying to defame the SAD on the issue. “Did you see youth lying dead on the streets with drug syringes by their side during the SAD tenure in govt, as is happening now?” she asked.The Bathinda MP also gave the example of a woman belonging to Sultanpur Lodhi who lost five sons to drugs in seven years. She also cited the case of a Tarn Taran sarpanch who was shot at for protesting against the sale of drugs in his village.“This is the ground situation now,” Harsimrat said, adding that the SAD was committed to bringing in new laws to end this menace once and for all. “Drug traffickers will be denied bail for 10 years to send a clear message that no one will be allowed to play with the lives of our children,” she added.The SAD functionary also slammed Punjab health minister Balbir Singh for not opening even a single medical college after promising to establish 16 of these in the state.“Even the local govt hospital in Samana is in a deplorable condition,” she said. “You only have to see the facilities created at AIIMS, Bathinda, to compare what the erstwhile SAD govt achieved in the health sector.”She also spoke about how the women would reject the AAP govt’s bid to buy them off by offering Rs 3,000 when they were owed Rs 60,000 (Rs 1,000 per month, as promised).Harsimrat said women have the right to demand their dues, and this money should be released to them immediately.
