The Indian Express: Patti (Tarn
Taran): Tuesday, January 17, 2017.
Through
RTI, I learnt that the shroud had reached the office of DGP (Intelligence) on
June 28. I don’t know if they forwarded it to the PM or have dumped it
somewhere,” Mukhtiar adds.
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| Mukhtiar with the medal he gifts those who overcome addiction. Kamaldeep Singh Brar |
That’s the
name people here have given to 46-year-old Mukhtiar Singh, an assistant lineman
in the Punjab power department. The name stuck after Mukhtiar’s son Manjit
Singh died last March. He marched on Patti’s streets carrying Manjit’s body,
and sat on dharna with it outside the SDM’s office, wrote a letter on his son’s
kaffan to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I sought the
Prime Minister’s intervention to save Punjab from drugs…I also wrote a
complaint against the Punjab government because I hold this government guilty
of not doing enough…These Akali leaders know it all, but yet they don’t do anything.
I am not a politician. I am a father who has carried his young son’s body to
the crematorium. I don’t want other fathers to go through the same pain,”
Mukhtiar Singh said.
He doesn’t
know if the shroud reached Modi. “I submitted it to the SDM office, who asked
me to hand it over to DSP, Patti. Through RTI, I learnt that the shroud had
reached the office of DGP (Intelligence) on June 28. I don’t know if they
forwarded it to the PM or have dumped it somewhere,” Mukhtiar adds.
Manjit, who
was 28 years old when he died, was a heroin addict. He died of an overdose,
after two or three years of futile visits to rehab centres. Manjit was a
college dropout and could not get any job. Since losing Manjit, Mukhtiar has
taken it upon himself to educate the youth of Patti about the dangers of drug
addiction. He has found some supporters
in Patti. He calls their group Kaffan Bol Peya (Speaking Shroud).
For the
February 4 Punjab Assembly election, Mukhtiar has written to the State Election
Commission seeking its permission to campaign, not for a candidate or a
political party, but against drug addiction. Election time is also when drugs
are more freely available, he alleges. Mukhtiar’s wife wife Bhupinder Kaur and
son Jagjit Singh, a graduate who is job hunting, are supporting him in his
initiative against drugs. His daughter is married. “I took my son’s body around
Patti because I wanted to show people what drugs can do to them. I wanted
people to change their mindset and come out openly against this menace”, he
said.
Mukhtiar’s
day begins early. As part of his routine, he steps out of his home, meet people
and ask them to join him in his crusade against drugs. “My 9 am to 5 pm job
takes me to several villages throughout the day. I keep an eye for such
youngsters who are addicts. I talk to people of that village, asking them to
help such youngsters”, he said.
Patti, which
used to be a tehsil of Lahore before Partition, now falls in Tarn Taran, a
border district of Punjab known for its high number of drug addicts and NDPS
cases. An Assembly constituency, Patti is represented by SAD candidate Adaish
Pratap Singh Kairon, son-in-law of Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal.
Kairon
defeated Congress candidate Harminder Singh Gill by a thin margin of 59 votes
in 2012 assembly polls. They are locked in a triangular contest with AAP
candidate Ranjit Singh Cheema. Both Congress and AAP have promised to end the
drug menace in weeks and months.
Harminder
Singh Gill, who is contesting on a Congress ticket from Patti, said, “A large
number of youngsters have died due to drug overdose in Patti in the last 10
years. The police-politico nexus is facilitating the drug supply even at
addicts’ doorsteps. Politicians’ close aides are into business of drug
smuggling. There is story of death due to drug addiction in each and every
street of Patti. Only opening de-addiction centres cannot cure drug addiction.
The supply needs to be snapped. After coming to power, this shall be our top
priority”.
Said Ranjit
Singh Cheema, AAP candidate from the constituency who is making his debut in
politics: “Curbing the drug menace is on our top priority, not only in Patti
but across the state. There are many like Mukhtiar Singh who have lost their
children to drugs. The supply chain needs to be snapped. Akalis and Congress,
both had ruled this state in turns for decades. People have seen them and are
now fed up of their false and hollow promises,” he says.
People in
Patti say they have never seen sitting MLA Adaish Partap Singh Kairon after the
last elections. And though he has been nominated to the same constituency by
SAD, he is yet to visit this election. “He is an alien to this constituency who
surfaces only during polls. Last time also he barely secured a victory by a
thin margin. He won’t make it this time,” says Cheema.
Kairon was
not available for comment despite several efforts to reach him. But the
Shiromani Akali Dal has maintained that Opposition parties have blown the issue
of drugs out of proportion and alleged this was being done with a view to
defaming Punjab, and its youth. But this ramshackle rural-urban town close to
the Pakistan border, is evidence that there is no wishing away the drug problem
in the State.
At the Opioid
Substitution Therapy (OST) Centre, a Union government initiative on the
premises of the Civil Hospital, addicts as young as 13 and 14 years queue up
for their daily dose of drug substitute. Around 900 addicts are registered at
the OST. Over 200 have been visiting the civil hospital regularly.
Opposite the
OST, the Punjab government-run drug de-addiction centre used to have 120
patients in OPD per month. The number has declined over the last few months.
One doctor visits the centre once a week, as she has to look after patients at
Tarn Taran and Sarhali de-addiction centres on other days.
Dr. Isha
Dhawan at drug de-addiction centre in Patti said, “On an average 120 patients
come to OPD. Around 25 new patients come every month. We are trying our best to
convince, educate and treat as many as we can. There are a few who are off
drugs after treatment but yet there is a lot more that needs to be done”.
Aside from
these two, there is a new drug rehabilitation centre in Bhagupur, a village in
Patti tehsil. The town also has one government-sponsored NGO called Himalayan
foundation, working to spread awareness about the dangers of getting HIV /AIDS
from used syringes. Tarn Taran itself has the worst drug numbers for Punjab.
Mukhtiar
Singh, who uses RTI to collect data relating to drugs, has all the information
about the district.
“Tarn Taran
district received maximum 83,873 addicts at the de-addiction centres out of a
total of 2,91,367 addicts in 17 out of 22 districts of Punjab in 2014. Tarn
Taran again topped the list in 2015 with 70,335 addicts enrolling in
de-addiction centres among total 2,02,904 in the same 17 districts. The
district also has a distinction with maximum of 4213 cases registered under
NDPS act in last five years across the state. A total of 4,670 accused were
arrested in those cases”, Mukhtiar Singh reels out from the replies he has
obtained from the 17 out of 22 district administrations Amritsar, Bathinda,
Ludhiana, Fatehgarh and Faridkot did not reply to his queries.
Mukhtiar, who
is also president of Technical Service Union of Bhikhiwind, a body of Punjab
State Power Corporation employees, recently met Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind
Kejriwal. “I gave him the figures on drug-addiction across Punjab. He quotes
the same data in his speeches while addressing the drug issue in Punjab,” he
says with pride.
But Mukhtiar adds in the same breath that he
is not inclined towards any particular political party. “Some political parties
have approached me to join them, but I said no,” he says.
Mukhtiar
Singh maintains a file of cuttings on deaths due to drug addiction. “You would
never know exact number of deaths due to drug addiction because people are
ashamed to admit it,” he says. But he has been able to convince some people in
Patti that talking about drug addiction is half the journey to winning the war
against it. Tirath Ram, a juice vendor, says he is now facing the fact that
both his sons are drug addicts.
“They may not
live for long. That’s the reason I am not planning their marriage. I don’t want
to spoil the life of any young girl by hiding this truth,” said Tirath Ram,
with tears in his eyes. Attending to customers at his roadside vend, Tirath
Singh says: “Drugs are easily available in this area. You just need to have
money. Drugs will be provided at your doorstep. I attempted to get treatment
for my sons. But I failed. No treatment can be successful until the drugs
supply is cut.”
Repeating the
widely leveled allegation of a nexus at the top levels between drug suppliers,
law enforcers and politicians, he says: “Only government can stop supply but they
themselves facilitate drug smugglers”.. Like Mukhtiar, Gurcharan Singh, a
roadside tea vendor and resident of Bhagupur in Patti also lost his son last
year. “Despite best of my efforts, I could not save him. Now, I am raising my
grandson”. Mukhtiar, meanwhile, hopes the SEC will give him permission to
campaign.
“There are
rules barring government employees from canvassing or campaigning. But there
can’t be a rule barring a father who lost his son to drugs from preventing
other youngsters meeting the same ill fate,” he says.
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