The Chief Minister's Office of Punjab on 4 June 2026 said the state police carried out 526 raids on the 134th day of the ongoing 'Gangsteran Te Vaar' (War on Gangsters) campaign, targeting locations across Punjab that had been identified and mapped as linked to associates of known gangsters. The operation led to the arrest of several individuals and the recovery of seven weapons, taking the cumulative arrest tally since the campaign's launch to 33,612.

Context

In its post, the CMO stated that as the 'decisive Gangsteran Te Vaar campaign enters its 134th day, Punjab Police conducted 526 raids at identified and mapped locations linked to associates of gangsters across the state.' The original Punjabi text used the phrase ਫ਼ੈਸਲਾਕੁੰਨ ਮੁਹਿੰਮ ('decisive campaign') to describe the drive.

The announcement underscores the day-by-day reporting format that the Punjab Police and the Chief Minister's Office have adopted for the operation, with daily updates on raids, arrests and arms recoveries. The 134-day continuum signals a sustained, rather than episodic, enforcement push.

Policy backdrop

The Aam Aadmi Party government, led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann since March 2022, has placed dismantling the drug-and-gangster nexus at the centre of its internal-security agenda. 'Gangsteran Te Vaar' is the most visible expression of that commitment, mobilising district police units in coordinated, intelligence-led sweeps.

Anti-gangster drives are not new to Punjab. Previous state administrations also ran large-scale operations against organised crime and narcotics trafficking, often involving multi-district raids and arms recoveries. The current campaign builds on that template but emphasises the 'mapping' of associate networks — a shift from targeting individual fugitives to disrupting the wider support ecosystem of gangs.

Stakeholders and impact

The immediate stakeholders are Punjab's residents, particularly in districts where gang violence and extortion have surfaced in recent years, and the rank-and-file of the Punjab Police, who execute the daily raids. Organised crime networks — several with reported overseas links in Canada, Europe and elsewhere — are the principal targets.

The recovery of seven weapons in a single day, while modest in absolute terms, feeds into a larger seizure ledger that the state cites as evidence of degraded gang firepower. The cumulative figure of 33,612 arrests over 134 days averages out to roughly 250 arrests per day, a pace that places significant demands on policing, prosecution and prison infrastructure.

For residents, the visible enforcement tempo is intended to deter extortion calls and gang-linked violence that have periodically rattled commercial hubs in the state. For civil-society observers, the scale also raises questions about due process, bail outcomes and the conversion of arrests into convictions.

What's next

Attention will turn to whether the state shares disaggregated data on the nature of charges, conviction rates and assets attached under the campaign. Any debate in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha on the operation's outcomes, along with periodic consolidated briefings from the Director General of Police, will be key markers of how the drive evolves beyond its current arrest-and-raid metrics.

If sustained, 'Gangsteran Te Vaar' could become a defining law-and-order plank of the Mann government as it approaches the second half of its term, with electoral implications tied to perceptions of safety and the credibility of follow-through in court.