Drug menace: ‘CAG report is baseless, conviction rate 85%’
A day after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report pointed to a nexus between peddlers and police during the previous SAD-BJP government, SAD president and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal termed the report baseless.
“Such reports come every day. It was also a CAG’s report which claimed Rs 2 lakh-crore scam (CAG report mentioned a notional loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the 2G spectrum). What the court said in its verdict?” he said, while referring to the acquittal of all the 18 accused, including former minister A Raja, in the trial court.
Sukhbir was interacting with the media on the sidelines of a parallel event organised by the SAD, close to the venue of the state government’s function on the occasion of martyrdom day of Shaheed Bhagat Singh at his ancestral village on Friday.
Before addressing the conference, Sukhbir along with former minister Bikram Singh Majithia and Anandpur Sahib MP Prem Singh Chandumajra paid tributes to Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru at the newly inaugurated museum where the CM had just winded up the state-level programme.
When asked about CAG’s mention about 70% acquittal by courts in drug cases in Punjab during 2016-17, which hinted at a nexus between police and peddlers, Badal said, “In our last year, we had over 85% conviction rate in drug cases. This is the official figure, relating to which an official document was tabled in the House. I laid the report when I was a home minister.”
Regarding the CAG observation that Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) did not submit an action plan for five years to seek the benefit of Union government assistance — provided to strengthen enforcement capabilities against drug trafficking — until 2014, he said that they did not need financial assistance.
“We didn’t need 5-10 crore financial assistance from the Centre to fight drugs. We fought against drugs on our own by constructing rehabilitation centres and providing free medicines,” he added.
MAJITHIA TAKES DIG AT SIDHU
SAD leader Bikram Majithia, while taking a dig at local bodies minister Navjot Sidhu, terming him as an opportunist, who bowed “before the feet of Congress leadership, which is responsible for the attack on Golden Temple and 1984 riots.” He was apparently referring to Sidhu touching the feet of Congress president Sonia Gandhi at the party’s recent national plenary. “I was considering Sidhu a true Sikh but now I realise he is not. Had he been a true Sikh, he should have asked the Congress leadership to apologise for the attack and 1984 riots,” he added.