the Governor said that with the public participation and coordination of all security agencies, “we can stop the attempts made by the anti-national elements to smuggle arms and drugs into our state with the intention of destabilizing India”. (File)Punjab Governor Banwari Lal Purohit Tuesday laid emphasis on the joint efforts of police and public to eradicate the menace of drugs and arms trafficking.
Interacting with the sarpanches of the border villages at Fazilka’s Government MR College, the Governor said that with the public participation and coordination of all security agencies, “we can stop the attempts made by the anti-national elements to smuggle arms and drugs into our state with the intention of destabilizing India”.
Terming the six border districts as most sensitive, he said that Pakistan has realized that it could not dare to initiate direct war with India, so it has started targeting “our youth by sending drugs” and ammunition. “We can thwart these tricks of the enemy if people remain vigilant,” he added.
He also emphasised on the need of civil security committees at the village and ward levels.
Cong question govt over Gov remarks on illegal mining
Supporting Governor Banwarilal Purohit’s remarks that those involved in illegal sand mining along border should be booked for treason, Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring Tuesday said “this is a serious and scathing indictment of the state government, which has remained lenient and lax on the matter despite High Court orders and the alarm raised by the security agencies”.
Warring, while expressing his gratitude to the Governor for “trying to shake the Punjab government out of its slumber and inertia”, reminded him that “the Congress party had demanded a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the illegal sand mining along the borders”. Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa also warned Bhagwant Mann government on “its laxity to check illegal mining in the border areas, hence posing a serious threat to the national security”.
Referring to the statements of Purohit expressing concerns over the “unbridled illegal mining in the border areas of Punjab”, Bajwa stated “if Bhagwant Mann failed to check the same immediately it would amount to hugely bargaining with the security of the country”.
Bajwa said he was a part of a delegation of senior congress leaders on September 1 to handover a memorandum to the Punjab Governor. In the memorandum, Bajwa said, he had “expressed the same concern over the deep ditches being dug near the Punjab borders posing a serious threat to national security”.
Warring in an appeal to the Governor stated, “Now that you have also shared our concern and seen it for yourself as how rampant and wanton mining is illegally taking place along the borders thus causing grave risk to the national security, there should be no reason not to recommend an NIA probe into the matter at the earliest.”
The PCC president maintained that he “did not have any hope from the Punjab government as it had been trapped in misplaced priorities with its Delhi leadership pushing agendas either not concerned with Punjab or against its interests like the SYL.”
Bajwa pointed out that “both the Army and the Border Security Force (BSF) had submitted affidavits in the high court that deep dug trenches near the border could become happy hunting grounds for the anti national elements for smuggling arms and ammunition from across the border hence posing threat to India’s security”.