Jaibans Singh
The delegation meeting the people of village Jherianwali
A sad case of 18 young boys of village Jherianwali in District Mansa having died due to drug (Chitta) addiction has come to light. All were from the Scheduled Caste Mazhabi Sikh Community.
This horrifying news has been made public by a groups of social workers who visited the village on 27 August to carry out an on ground assessment. Col. Jaibans Singh (retd) and Shri SR Ladhar, former IAS, both from the social welfare organisation Global Punjabi Association were approached by a social activist from Mansa, S. Jagjit Singh Milkha with this information. They immediately palnned a trip to the affected village. They were joined in this noble cause by another group of social workers also associated with the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). This group was led by S. Jagdeep Singh Nakai.
The delegation visited the village and carried out interaction in the house of a former sarpanch, S. Badal Singh. They were provided with a list of the eighteen youth, all in the age bracket of 20 to 30 years who have died of drug (mainly Chitta) abuse over the last year or so. Sadly, the village has witness the death of four out of these 18 youth in the last about ten days.
The sad part is that the poor and illiterate families of the victims, under pressure of police and administration, have not reported these deaths as having happened due to unnatural causes and as such, no postmortems have been conducted and no FIRs registered. The pressure was obviously with the intention of hiding the figures from public scrutiny since their coming out would severely impact the “Yudh Nashiya Virodh” program of the Aam Aadmi Party led Government of Punjab
Due to the asbsence of proof about the deaths having been caused due to unnatural circumstance, the victim families have not even claimed compensation under the the SC/ST Act 1989. The act stipulates that any person belonging to the SC/ST community dying due to unnatural causes, (in which category death due to drug abuse falls) will be provided relief as given below.
- The next of kin of will be given a compensation of Rs 8.25 lakh in cash.
- A pension of Rs. 5000/- per mointh will be given to the widow or mother of the deceased
- One member of the family will be provided with a government job by the state government.
- A house will be provided to the family under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or any other project
The delegation informed the people about their rights under the act and recommended them to follow correct procedures of registering an FIR and getting a post-mortem conducted should such an unfortunate incident happen in the future.
Shri SR Ladhar, having served as Deputy Commissioner of Mansa while in service, spoke to the incumbent Deputy Commissioner Smt. Navjot Kaur and requested her to order an inquiry into the deaths and provide relief to the families under provisions of the law. He also spoke to the Superintendent of Police.
The delegation holding a press conference at Mansa
The team also conducted a press conference and informed the media about its findings.
The team has taken an application from the village Sarpanch and will be pursuing it with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes.
Col. Jaibans Singh recommended to the administration to get all the youth in nearby areas medically examined. He ealso recommended to the prominent citizens of the area to liaise with the local non-government hospitals for conduct of medical camps as part of corporate social responsibility and carry out the medical examinations, Col. Jaibans Singh assured the support of the Global Punjabi Association in this noble initiative.
Col Jaibans singh also urged the village elders to motivate all Mazhabi Sikh youth to work hard and join the SIKH LI regiment of the Indian Army and thus become part of a rich legacy.
Punjab can no longer afford to remain in denial mode so far as drug abuse is concerned.
The government, the ruling party, all other political parties and social organisations need to rise above the ongoing politcs and blame games to tackle the situation.