InDepth | Punjab: Ground Zero of Drug Crisis In India

At the end of the bhog ceremony, marking the end of the family’s mourning, the grieving father, Sukhdev Singh, 48, mumbled, “He was my second son, Jovan, barely 17, younger than Jagjit, 21, whom I also lost to chitta (heroin). I carried the bodies of both to the funeral, one after the other, in the past two years. There is no one left to light my pyre or look after me and my wife, Jasbir Kaur, in our old age.”

Village Chatiwind located on the southeastern periphery of Amritsar, which was till recently in the forefront of community-led initiatives in the fight against drugs, is counting its losses today. The 7,000-strong village is a stark reminder that the drug crisis in rural Punjab is deeply entrenched.

The crisis has battered village after village.

In Chatiwind, a row of deserted houses stands as a depressing reminder of families wiped out by addiction and drug peddling. In the narrow lanes, one sees teenagers huddled in desolate corners of abandoned houses, injecting drugs in broad daylight. A few teenage boys, barely conscious, lie on the street, heavily intoxicated. Paramjit Singh, a farmers’ union leader who is the most vocal face against drugs in the region, maintains live data of deaths, which has been approximately 160–170 in the last 10 years. He routinely goes to every family pleading not to let children peddle or use drugs, but admits the crisis is beyond remedy. A generation is slowly vanishing from Punjab.

“Every other home at Chatiwind is mourning the deaths of young sons. They have no means to cook and eat, but household articles, even utensils, are taken away and sold by addi­cted children to buy doses of drugs, called nagg, each costing Rs 200 to Rs 1000, depending on its potency,” Singh says.

In February 2022, the villagers had voted for change in the form of the Aam Aadmi Party government, which promised to wipe out drugs in three months. “Corruption, weak enforcement and the alleged nexus between sections of the police and drug peddlers continue to undermine the fight against narcotics,” Bagha says.

As one travels through villages along the India-Pakistan border in the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, and Kapurthala, there are countless stories of drug overdose deaths (DODs), substance abuse, devastated families, trafficking and arms smuggling from across the border through aerial vehicles, rivers and surface routes. Villagers’ proximity to the international border is a major factor in how drugs have reached their homes.

On the surface, the villages of the Majha belt—the basins of the Ravi and Beas rivers, look prosperous with their lush fields, imposing houses, gleaming vehicles and extended families who live in countries like Canada and the United States. Yet, behind the veil lies a dark reality: drugs, crime and shattered homes. Rising cases of domestic violence, increased divorce rates and higher school dropout rates here are due to drug addiction. “Families are not marrying their girls off in the villages with a high rate of addiction. Some villages have no marriageable-age boys left due to overdose deaths,” says Malkiat Singh Patti, who lost his young son to drugs and has since turned anti-drug activist at Tarn Taran.

Police collusion with traffickers is one of the biggest challenges in dismantling the drug network, a fact openly admitted by top police officials at Chandigarh. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has repeatedly drawn the government’s attention towards several instances of corruption and collusion of certain police personnel with smugglers and traffickers. This is one of the biggest hurdles in the state’s fight against drugs, admits a young Punjab Indian Police Service officer.

Heroin produced in Afghanistan is trafficked through Pakistan and smuggled into India using drones and cross-border couriers. Pakistan-based smugglers and handlers have increasingly adopted drone deliveries, making interdiction more difficult. Drug trafficking is controlled by well-organised syndicates with international links.

Attari, known for the integrated checkpost and the Wagah border ceremony, is highly vulnerable to the drug trade. Yet, one needs to clearly understand the difference between local addiction and cross-border smuggling. Many villagers are quite vocal against drugs and demand stronger enforcement.

Though the region remains under a heightened vigil of the state and central agencies, the drug menace is not simply a law-and-order issue. It has grown into a public health, social and economic issue.

With state elections nearing, the issue has once again come into sharp focus, after Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann claiming the open sale of narcotics has largely been curbed. As per him, his anti-drug drive—yudh nashian virudh (war against drugs) has started showing results. More than 47,000 people have used the Safe Punjab Anti-Drug helpline, which led to a major crackdown on traffickers and peddlers on 30,000 complaints. The Punjab government has also started a drug survey to generate its own data on drug incidence, engaging youths to go door to door and generate GPS-based data. However, the opposition parties, including Shiromani Akali Dal leaders, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, have dismissed it as an “eyewash” aimed at managing the government’s image rather than addressing the problem.

In May 2026, the government was pulled up by the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, which described the drug situation in Punjab as “terrible,” adding that the human toll was alarming. The court criticised Punjab Police for arresting only small peddlers for publicity while influential traffickers remained untouched.

Punjab shares a 553-km international border with Pakistan, making it one of India’s most vulnerable frontiers for cross-border smuggling of narcotics, arms and drones. As per the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) annual report 2025, released by Union Home Minister Amit Shah last month, Punjab accounted for 2,086 kg of heroin seized in 2025, which is 58 per cent of the national total of 3,567 kg.

Of the 305 drone-related drug smuggling cases detected across India in 2025, Punjab accounted for 298 (97 per cent). Authorities seized 461 kg of narcotics in these cases, including 449.7 kg of heroin and nine kg of methamphetamine.

At Amritsar, NCB officials admit a continuing challenge along the India-Pakistan border (an approximately 553-km stretch), of which three districts, Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Kapurthala have become hotspots of cross-border smuggling of drugs from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Having traditionally used porous borders for surface and water routes, now drugs are flown through unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—highly sophisticated drones operated from Pakistan bases. The anti-drone radars, installed at the borders, sometimes are unable to detect technologically advanced UAVs.

“The drug-smugglers rely on advanced and high-tech technologies. Local couriers, who are part of a chain, are mostly the village-level peddlers in the border belt. They get coded messages through encrypted mobile apps, informing them about the consignment and its dead-drop location. After retrieving the consignment, they pass it on to the next link in the distribution chain, eventually reaching the kingpin,” an NCB official says.

Several investigations and court cases over the years have exposed instances of police personnel and government officials allegedly colluding with traffickers. Some traffickers lodged in Punjab’s jails operate their own syndicates from behind bars.

The NCB report notes the new shift of the drug abusers from chitta to pharmaceutical opioids, intravenous use and synthetic drugs. These are readily available in different forms and sold like groceries in the villages and on the streets.

Epicentre of Cross-border Smuggling

Tarn Taran, one of Punjab’s border districts, is known as the epicentre of cross-border drug smuggling. Top intelligence officials confirm that drugs are increasingly being dropped by drones from across the border and then picked up by local couriers operating in the villages next to the border. Each carrier, mostly unemployed youths, gets Rs 20,000-30,000 per pick-up and delivery.

The Border Security Force and Punjab Police jointly recovered 485 grams of heroin from agricultural fields near the border in June 2026, dropped by a UAV from Pakistan. Ten to 15 drones infiltrate the border belt every 24 hours, and only a handful is brought down or intercepted. “It’s a huge challenge because we don’t have adequate anti-drone surveillance and interception systems,” a top officer admits. Muradpur, a slum settlement adjoining the railway station and villages such as Dal, Patti, Khalra, Khemkaran, Mastgarh, Bhikhiwind, Pandori Gola, Kalash, Mehdipur, Wan and Rajoke figure in the NCB and Punjab Police records as hotspots for drug addiction and cross-border drone activity.

Local activists working in these villages narrate heartbreaking stories about families, mainly poor, landless and invariably Dalit families, having lost sons to addiction. Women addicts or peddlers either die due to overdose, illnesses, or end up in jail.

Dr Jasjit Singh (name changed), who has treated hundreds of addicts at rehabilitation centres and OPDs in Tarn Taran, says most addicts repeatedly share or reuse syringes. This action increases the risk of blood-borne infections like HIV, hepatitis B and C and severe liver infections.

Focus Areas of the Police

Punjab Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav says, “The police have prepared a comprehensive strategy to dismantle the entire supply network and eliminate the complete chain...Strict law enforcement, upgrading intelligence-network demand reduction, rehabilitation and community participation are our focus areas.” The smugglers and handlers based in Pakistan have increasingly adopted drone deliveries, which is a huge challenge for the agencies trying to counter them, he admits.

Data from Punjab Police says that between March 1, 2023, and July 2026, around 52,432 FIRs were registered under the NDPS Act and a record 68,843 persons arrested. In a crackdown on economic offenders in drug-related crimes, 96 persons were arrested and Rs 9.98 crore of hawala money was recovered. Punjab Police have claimed major success in tracking drug peddlers on information provided by citizens on the Safe Punjab App. Of the 46,342 complaints received, first information reports were lodged in 17,844 cases, yielding arrests of 22,960 accused. “Success rate is perhaps the highest in the country, which is between 30–40 percent,” says Neelab Kishore, Director General of Police (anti-drug task force).

Unemployment, economic distress and declining farm incomes have left many young people vulnerable to drug addiction and trafficking. The industrial sector, which once provided stable employment, has stagnated. Several traditional industries have either shut down, downsized, or relocated. The armed forces, once a major source of secure jobs, are not making regular recruitments due to the rise of drug abuse and trafficking. Breaking the supply chain is essential, but real success will depend on demand reduction and rehabilitation of young addicts.

Ashwani Sharma is a journalist based out of Shimla