Can Congress duck responsibility if Mafias are thriving in Punjab?

Punjab’s worst-ever hooch tragedy has already claimed at least 121 lives and several face serious and long term health issues, such as eyesight loss. As details of the horrific tragedy are emerging, it is apparent that a well-organized mafia was involved in the lucrative business of spurious liquor.

The tragedy has given the Opposition a chance to take on the Punjab government directly — it is alleging that liquor mafia could thrive to this extent due to political patronage. Even Congress Rajya Sabha MPs, Partap Singh Bajwa and Shamsher Singh Dullo, are doing everything to put the Amarinder government in the dock.

The chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh has already ordered Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta to slap murder charges on all the accused directly involved in the case. However, tough action is being taken after such loss of lives. This can be compared to the crackdown on drug peddlers and addicts after the SAD-BJP combine lost in 2014 parliamentary elections, in which the drug menace had become the biggest issue.

However, the important question remains — who is accountable and responsible for the thriving of spurious liquor mafia? If Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP were held responsible by the Congress for all the wrongs during their rule — from mining mafia to drug mafia or other mafias named by Congress leaders before the 2017 assembly elections — why should the same parameters not be applied now?

Does Punjab Police top brass, who are remarkably prescient about what is being planned by ISI in Pakistan — from details of conspiracies by alleged overseas players to foment trouble in Punjab and advance information on “terror modules” — want us to believe that Punjab Police officials, from district to police station levels, and intelligence wing were all unaware of these illegal operations of liquor and mining mafias.

The liquor mafias were not supplying liquor in small pouches of a few milliliters but in huge quantities. Can the police remain unaware when something is being “purchased” and supplied on such a scale? Extent of impunity was evident from video recording of the police raid at a house in a village of Tarn Taran district, after people had started dying of hooch, revealed big drums were stored on the roof of a house and liquor was being supplied through permanently fixed (water) pipes.

Even as spurious liquor mafia was thriving in the state, the Punjab CM had highlighted Pakistan’s ‘persistent attempts’ to spread narco-terrorism in India and claimed that police force was ‘keeping a close watch’ on anti-national activities across the border during the pandemic.

On numerous occasions, the CM has warned, rather threatened Pakistan that it would be taught a lesson and any attempts to foment any trouble in Punjab would be crushed with an iron hand. However, the police forgot to keep an eye on various mafias thriving in the state.

Not only the liquor mafia, the mining mafia has already been ruling the roost in the state. In case of spurious liquor, the Punjab government, Congress leaders and Punjab Police may argue there was no connivance or criminal negligence, but the argument falls flat on mining mafia which by its nature does not operate clandestinely, with big earth moving machines and hundreds of tippers plying on main roads and even national highways with illegal material.

Not just photographic evidence, even video evidence of illegal mining has been emerging in the public domain. For instance, Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira had recently on Twitter tagged the Punjab CM on a video clip of mining in Zira tehsil of Ferozepur district, showing scores of tippers at a mining site. This mining operation ended in a few minutes.

Later, the district mining officer released a statement confirming that fresh illegal mining had taken place when officials visited the site but claimed that no vehicle or men were found there so unidentified persons were booked. “Strict legal action would be taken if anybody would be found indulging in illegal mining and people can give information if they come to know about illegal mining,” read the last line of the official press release.

Already, Punjab is on the brink of an ecological disaster as the major share of its river water is flowing to neighbouring states and it is meeting 70% of its irrigation needs from ground water leading to an alarming depletion of its water table. Both its underground and over ground water sources have been polluted.

Forest cover is just 6.12%. Very deep and massive illegal mining in river beds, uncontrolled mining from ecologically fragile semi-hilly or plain areas of Hoshiarpur district for taking out stones are only hastening the impending ecological catastrophe.

Punjab has been losing precious lives to drug and liquor mafias and its precious natural resources and revenue to mining mafia.

There was optimism in the state when within four months of Captain Amarinder Singh taking reins of power in the state, the special task force arrested Punjab Police inspector Inderjit Singh, the star of several high profile drug recoveries, in June 2017 after recovery of drugs from his two residences. However, the buck stopped at the inspector.

Nothing has been brought in the public domain in the last three years on the investigation and whether senior officers were involved or they remained blissfully unaware of his activities. In either case, it is shocking as well as surprising because the CM and senior police officers have time and again highlighted Pak-backed “narco-terrorism” in Punjab.

Despite numerous examples of failure in basic policing, top echelons of the state government now want to push Punjab Control of Organized Crime Act (PCOCA).

The hooch tragedy is a case of missing will and not of law. However, political class and bureaucrats want to take recourse to a special law.

If there was any substance in allegations leveled by Gidderbaha Congress MLA Amarinder Singh ‘Raja’ Warring around three months back that there was loss of Rs 600 crore to the excise department and he sought a high-level probe and fixing of accountability, a new mafia has emerged in the state — excise evasion mafia. One minister and eight other MLAs had endorsed his allegations and demand, but everyone turned silent later.

It is for Warring and other MLAs to either explain their silence or the hollowness of their allegations. Notably, it was for one and all to notice that very few customers were seen at liquor vends when these were opened after weeks of lockdown even as liquor consumption is considered high in Punjab. Is it really very difficult to assess the reason?

It would be wonderful to understand how the Punjab government and Punjab Police keep a “close watch” on activities across the border but are unaware of the various mafias thriving in the state. Do Congress MLAs, in whose areas mining mafias or liquor mafias thrived and who daily meet hundreds of people or speak to them on phone, want us to believe that they never came across any information about illegal mining or illegal liquor trade? If according to Punjab Congress leaders buck stopped at the top during the SAD-BJP rule, how can it stop at junior police or excise department officials now?

Heads must roll or Punjab will lose its heart and hopes.

This article first appeared in timesofindia.indiatimes.com and is being reproduced here courtesy TOI.