Got 3 SIT reports on police-drug mafia nexus: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann

CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday announced that he had received three reports of the special investigation team (SIT) of 2018 on the nexus between police officers and drug traffickers and action will be initiated against the culprits according to the law.
“I have the three reports that were lying in sealed envelopes for years. Strict action will be initiated against those who have ruined the youth of Punjab,” Mann tweeted. This follows the Punjab and Haryana high court ordering on March 28 that the sealed reports be opened and sent to the Punjab government for action.
Mann alleged in a statement that drug trade had flourished during the previous Akali-BJP and Congress regimes, adding that the state government will soon initiate action against those named in reports pertaining to drug trade. “Affluent leaders of these parties had patronised the illegal trade in connivance of bureaucrats and drug smugglers to mint money,” he alleged, adding that those behind it will not be spared at any cost and they will be put behind the bars.
The chief minister said that the probe reports had been hanging fire as the previous governments were not sincere to take action. Mann said that now he had received the report in three packets from the Punjab and Haryana high court, strict action will be taken against the forces inimical to state and its youth. Mann said that the reports on the nexus between police officers and drug traffickers were pending for five years and the previous Congress government had not taken any action.
The SIT reports were opened in the high court following an application filed by Lawyers for Human Rights International (LFHRI), seeking to open the report filed by the SIT. Advocate Navkiran Singh of LFHRI was an intervener in the 2013 suo motu petition in the drug menace matter in Punjab. While two reports were submitted on February 1 and March 15, 2018, respectively, another was submitted on May 8 to the high court on the role of the police in drug cases. The high court had sought the response of former DGPs Dinkar Gupta and Siddharth Chattopadhyay.