Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday pledged that those responsible for killing anti-drug activists in Punjab would be hunted down, and asked citizens to report trafficking to central authorities if the state administration failed to act, according to NDTV.
Shah made the statement after meeting the family of Bikramjit Singh, a Punjab anti-drug campaigner killed in recent violence. The Central Bureau of Investigation would hunt the culprits "even in hell", India Today reported. BJP Punjab vice-president Fatehjang Singh Bajwa said the visit conveyed that the party would fulfil its commitment to eradicate drugs from the state, NDTV reported separately. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann separately pledged that no drug peddler, regardless of influence, would be spared, according to NDTV.
A direct channel to New Delhi
The home minister's instruction to report trafficking directly to central authorities is the substantive part of Monday's announcement. It creates a parallel reporting channel outside the state machinery. Anti-drug campaigners in Punjab have long complained that local networks shield traffickers, making local police an unreliable first responder. The central promise addresses that concern: if the state administration does not act, central agencies will.
This does not amount to a takeover of policing. It is a specific intervention aimed at a specific failure of trust at the block level. The CBI's involvement, if it becomes a formal investigation, brings interstate jurisdiction into play. Trafficking networks do not respect state borders; their supply chains run across northern and western corridors. A central agency can trace those linkages with fewer local entanglements. That reflects how organised drug networks operate, not a comment on state capacity.
Whether citizens use that channel depends on whether they believe central agencies will protect them from reprisal. The CBI's presence in a district brings its own deterrence, but it also heightens risk for informants unless accompanied by witness protection. The Home Minister's appeal is incomplete as a security promise; it must be paired with a concrete protection framework. Without that, reporting to central authorities remains an act of faith.
Protecting the activists who take the risk
Anti-drug activists occupy the most exposed position in Punjab's trafficking economy. They name small dealers and expose local supply routes, then face the consequence. A killing sends a signal to every other campaigner. The Home Minister's promise of retribution aims to reverse that signal. But the promise must be measured against outcomes: arrests, chargesheets, convictions.
Witness protection for families who testify against traffickers and fast-track trials for drug-related violence would do more to deter retaliation than any single investigation. Neither requires new legislation; both require administrative will and sustained funding. Without them, the hunt-and-catch announcement leaves the most vulnerable layer of the anti-drug movement exposed between campaigns.
The families of slain campaigners have pressed for central agency involvement, not because they distrust all local police but because revenge killings often implicate networks with local political connections. The federal promise answers that demand directly. The next step is to translate the visit into a case file with named accused and secured witnesses.
A state government under a partisan lens
The federal pledge landed with a political edge. Shah targeted the Aam Aadmi Party over what he called an open drug trade in Punjab, The Times of India reported. The state government pushed back with its own language of resolve: Chief Minister Mann promised strict action and zero tolerance. The contest is now between police and traffickers, and also between two levels of government over who can claim the anti-drug mandate. If central agencies and Punjab Police share field intelligence and coordinate operations, coverage widens. If the two tracks operate on separate political incentives, trafficking networks will exploit the gap. The home minister's direct appeal to citizens suggests he anticipates that gap widening; that is a political judgement, not a policing one.
What a genuine federal operation would require
A joint task force under the Ministry of Home Affairs, combining Punjab Police with the CBI and other central investigation bodies, would formalise what has so far been announced in pieces. It would also bring central resources to bear on cross-border smuggling routes that enter Punjab from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those routes form part of a national security question that has received insufficient federal attention. A federal structure that treats drug trafficking as an interstate, cross-border threat is long overdue.
The integration challenge is not trivial. Punjab Police holds field intelligence that central agencies lack, just as central bodies hold cross-border databases that local stations cannot access. A formal task force would force that information to move. It would also give the central government a durable role in an area where its presence has been episodic.
The danger is that Monday's announcement becomes another high-visibility moment without institutional follow-through. India has seen central promises on drugs before; what follows in many cases is a temporary spike in seizures and arrests, then a return to baseline. The test here is whether the machinery to protect activists and prosecute traffickers persists after the media moves on.
The killings of anti-drug activists are not random crimes; they reflect a trafficking economy that has learned to insulate itself from local pressure. When the central government promises to hunt down the killers, it asserts that this feature will not go unanswered. The question for Punjab is whether that answer takes the form of a permanent institutional arrangement or a season of headlines.
