Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday refuted Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal’s claims that the State had only 16,620 drug addicts saying his (Sukhbir’s) own Government had admitted a much higher figure in the High Court, only about seven months ago.
He asked the Deputy CM to refer to his own Government’s affidavit submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on July 13, 2015 on behalf of the Chief Secretary whereby it had admitted to having identified more than three lakh drug abusers of whom 13,000, it claimed were undergoing OPD treatment.
The former Chief Minister disclosed that in response to a PIl filed in the High Court, an affidavit was filed on behalf of the Punjab Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal which put the number of drug abusers at three lakhs.
“This is just about 7 months ago and now the Deputy CM says there are just 16,620 drug addicts in Punjab which is an outright lie”, he remarked, while pointing out how ignorant and far removed was the Deputy CM from the actual situation in the state. Capt Amarinder said although he did not agree with the figure in the affidavit as the number of addicts was much more than the Government had admitted in the High Court as an entire generation has been destroyed by drugs, the Deputy Chief Minister at least should not lie particularly when his own Government has quoted under oath a much higher figure than he is shouting about today.
He said, the Government had even provided wrong information about the treatment by saying 13,000 addicts were being treated in OPD as the drug addicts have to be admitted indoor and cannot be treated in OPD.