Mothers wept at his door, pleading for their children's lives — and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu says that image drives his government's fight against the drug crisis gripping the state. On 12 November 2026, the Congress leader took to X to declare that his administration had moved without delay to invoke the PIT-NDPS Act, targeting the synthetic drug 'chitta' that he says had devastated families across Himachal Pradesh under the previous BJP government.

In his post, Sukhu wrote: 'Chitta ke kaaran anek parivaar ujad chuke the' ('Because of chitta, countless families had been shattered'), adding that the then-government had refused to enforce the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act despite the scale of the crisis. 'When our government came, mothers came to us weeping, pleading to save their children from addiction,' he stated. 'We made it our resolve to free Himachal from chitta and shape a future for its youth.'

What the PIT-NDPS Act actually allows

The Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988, is a central Indian law that empowers authorities to detain suspected drug traffickers without bail for extended periods — up to one year — bypassing standard bail provisions under the criminal procedure code. It is widely regarded as one of the more muscular tools in a state's anti-narcotics arsenal, specifically because it targets the supply chain rather than only end-users. The companion statute, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985, regulates and controls the substances themselves.

Invoking the PIT-NDPS Act requires coordination between state police and central enforcement agencies, and state governments have historically been reluctant to use it, citing procedural complexity. Sukhu's message signals that his administration is pushing that reluctance aside — at least rhetorically — in response to community pressure.

Chitta's reach in the hills — and the politics around it

Himachal Pradesh, a northern Himalayan state, has seen 'chitta' — a form of heroin or white powder drug — become a defining social concern, particularly among rural youth in districts closer to border and transit routes. Drug abuse in hill states has become a recurring political battleground, with both Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party trading accusations over who allowed the crisis to worsen and who is doing more to combat it.

Sukhu's Congress government came to power in December 2022, ending a BJP term. His post on Thursday places the blame for the spread of 'chitta' squarely on that previous administration, citing a failure to deploy available legal tools — a charge the BJP has consistently denied in public discourse. These competing claims are a fixture of Himachal's political debate, and neither side's specific figures have been independently settled.

From rural doorsteps to state policy

The emotional centrepiece of Sukhu's post — mothers arriving in tears at the seat of government — is a deliberate appeal to the lived reality of Himachal's affected communities. It frames enforcement not as a law-and-order exercise but as a social compact with grieving families. His government has pledged awareness programmes alongside enforcement, targeting rural areas where the drug's reach is described as going 'village to village, home to home.'

What happens next will be measured in enforcement data: arrests under PIT-NDPS, seizure volumes, and the reach of any state-run de-addiction or awareness drives. Those numbers, expected to surface in upcoming assembly sessions, will test whether this week's declaration translates into verifiable outcomes on the ground.

For now, the Chief Minister has drawn his line clearly — Himachal Pradesh, in his telling, is in a race to reclaim its youth before the drug does.