Pak's Plan To Weaken Indian Army Involves Drugs, Says Amarinder Singh

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh today claimed that Pakistan is trying to destroy India's youth by flooding the state with drugs and in turn, stopping them from enrolling in the Indian Army.

Addressing the 16th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Mr Singh said: "We have had an influx of drugs, which has started to grow in recent years. It is at a critical point and we have cracked down hard on this. Pakistan has a long-term plan of destroying our youth. They are trying to demolish the youth along the border."

"If you don't have healthy youth, where will you get jawans from," he said, adding that his government was going all out to solve the drug problem, which was at a critical point.

Alleging Pakistan's motives were evident from the fact that drugs were being sent to Amritsar from Gujarat, even though they could fetch better prices in Delhi and Mumbai, Captain Singh called for a national policy to tackle the problem.

The Punjab chief minister pointed to recent seizures of hundreds of kilograms of heroin at Gujarat's Mandvi port and in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri. In both these cases, Mr Singh said, the intended destination of the narcotic substances was Punjab.

He said the state and central agencies have identified a few big illegal drug operators and were going after them.