The North News
Chandigarh, August 12
Punjab’s Finance Minister, Harpal Singh Cheema, on Tuesday aid that a state-run WhatsApp chatbot has helped register more than 5,000 First Information Reports (FIRs) in a year as part of an intensified campaign against drug trafficking. The Safe Punjab Portal, launched by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann in August 2024, allows residents to share information about drug peddlers and hotspots through a WhatsApp at 9779100200. Cheema said the system has achieved a 32 per cent conversion rate, turning public tips into police action. Speaking at a press conference in Chandigarh on Tuesday, Cheema called the portal “a vital source of intelligence” in the Yudh Nashian Virudh (war against drugs) campaign, which began on 1 March 2025.
Since the campaign’s launch, police have registered 16,322 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and arrested 25,552 people. Authorities have also demolished 182 illegal properties linked to alleged drug traffickers and seized 1,054kg of heroin, 21,534kg of poppy husk, 366kg of opium, and more than three million tablets, capsules and pills.
Cheema accused the former Shiromani Akali Dal–Bharatiya Janata Party alliance of protecting the drug trade during its decade in power, and criticised the Congress government that followed for “failing to take strong action” between 2017 and 2022. He said the Aam Aadmi Party administration had been committed from “day one” to eliminating the problem, adding that recent arrests, including that of alleged kingpin Joga Singh, could lead to the capture of other major figures in Punjab’s narcotics network.
