Chandigarh, Sept. 15 -- Days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced a statewide campaign against drugs starting September 18, chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday accused the central government of defaming Punjab instead of checking the drug supply through Gujarat's ports. Mann said large quantities of drugs such as a 3,000-kg consignment were being seized at ports in Gujarat, the home state of Union home minister Amit Shah, while drug supplies and seizures in Punjab, along the Pakistan border, were comparatively much smaller quantities, ranging from one to 10kg. He said the Punjab Police had been travelling to Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan - all BJP-ruled states - and making drug seizures whenever they received intelligence inputs. "The BJP keeps defaming Punjab. It is now planning yatras. They need to tackle drugs smuggled through Mundra Port in Gujarat, from where 3,000 kg were seized," he said at a press conference, flanked by director general of police Gaurav Yadav and three other senior police officers. The chief minister said the BJP had failed to check the supply of drugs and then was organising bus yatras and foot marches. "You cannot fool people like this," he said. The chief minister's attack on the BJP came days after the party announced four yatras to highlight the drug menace in the poll-bound state. On Friday, BJP state president Kewal Singh Dhillon, while announcing the 'Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatras', said they would cover all 117 assembly constituencies and turn the fight against drugs into a mass movement. BJP national president Nitin Nabin will flag off the yatra on September 18 from Pathankot, while Shah is expected to be present in Punjab on the concluding event in Jalandhar on September 30. The AAP government is facing criticism from the Opposition over drugs, gangsters, and law and order. Referring to the seizure of weapons such as AK-47 rifles, Mann said such arms were likely smuggled into the country through the international border, via Kashmir or Gujarat. Instead of indulging in any kind of blame game or credit war, the focus should be on intercepting such weapons before they could be used for any incident, the CM said, lauding the state police for its efforts. Taking a dig at the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Congress, Mann said that whenever they talked about gangsters, it made him laugh. He said those who had patronised criminal elements in the past had no moral authority to raise questions. He accused the opposition parties of indulging in vulture politics and not even sparing the dead. Mann did not respond to a question about Nabha jailbreak accused Gurpreet Singh Sekhon's induction into the AAP. DGP Gaurav Yadav said the state police had registered 60,582 FIRs and arrested 79,784 drug smugglers, including 708 'big fish' involved in 354 commercial-scale cases, each involving the recovery of over 2kg of heroin, since the launch of the flagship 'Yudh Nashian Virudh' anti-drug campaign. Sharing details of the milestones achieved on the anti-narcotics front between March 1, 2025 and September 10, 2026, and breakthroughs achieved by the counter-intelligence wing, Yadav said that overall drug recoveries during this period touched a record 3,803 kg of heroin, 976 kg of opium, 46 tonnes of poppy husk, 1,325 kg of ganja, and 78 lakh intoxicating capsules/tablets. "Punjab accounts for approximately 60% of India's total heroin recovery," he said. He said professional and scientific investigations spearheaded by the anti-narcotics task force (ANTF) elevated the conviction rate to 89%, adding that 13,430 NDPS cases were decided since March 1, 2025, with convictions secured in 11,981 of them." DGP said properties worth Rs.366 crore were frozen across 914 cases approved by the competent authority under Section 68-F of the NDPS Act. Concurrently, police nabbed 102 hawala operatives and recovered Rs.11 crore in hawala funds. He further claimed that Punjab was the first state to deploy Punjab Artificial Intelligence System (PAIS), executing 4.60 crore searches, leading to arrest of 4 lakh accused. Under the chief minister's reward policy, Rs.3.33 crore has been disbursed to 2,362 civilians and police personnel for actionable intelligence and drone intercept recoveries. Asked about the firing at singer Gulab Sidhu's house in Barnala, Yadav said police teams had received clues from CCTV footage and technical data and were close to nabbing the shooters. "We are deeply investigating the incident and I cannot, therefore, share any further details," he said....