Ninety-one thousand and thirty-one — that is the cumulative number of drug smugglers arrested in Punjab since the state launched its relentless anti-narcotics campaign, Yudh Nashian Virudh (War Against Drugs). On Thursday, 5 November 2026, the Chief Minister's Office of Punjab confirmed that Day 613 of the drive delivered another hard day's work: 301 locations raided, 86 FIRs registered, and fresh seizures pulled off the streets.

What Day 613's raids turned up

Punjab Police fanned out across the state in coordinated strikes, registering 86 first information reports and conducting raids at 301 locations. The haul from those operations: 2.5 kg of heroin, 2.5 kg of opium, 488 intoxicant pills, and ₹2.24 lakh in drug money seized directly from those arrested. Individually, these numbers describe a single day's grind. Stacked against 613 consecutive days of enforcement, they reveal a machine that has not stopped turning.

The campaign behind the numbers: Yudh Nashian Virudh

Yudh Nashian Virudh is the signature anti-narcotics drive of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's Aam Aadmi Party government, which came to power in March 2022. The campaign channels daily police raids, FIR registrations, and public arrest tallies as a supply-side enforcement strategy aimed squarely at dismantling trafficking networks that have plagued the state for years.

Punjab's geography has long made it vulnerable — international smuggling routes from across the western border have fed a steady stream of heroin into the state's towns and villages. Successive administrations since 2017 escalated enforcement phases and tabled anti-drug discussions in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, but the Mann government's approach is notable for its daily public accounting: every arrest, every FIR, every gram seized is announced with its cumulative running total. Transparency as pressure — on smugglers and on the police force itself.

91,031 arrests — and what that figure does not yet answer

The milestone of crossing 91,000 arrests within roughly 20 months is striking in scale. The CMO's daily bulletins serve a dual purpose: they signal momentum to Punjab's youth and families who have borne the heaviest cost of the drug crisis, and they build a public audit trail for a government that made tackling narcotics a central election promise. The state police remain the principal instrument, executing raids and filing cases while rehabilitation infrastructure operates in parallel.

What the daily figure does not yet fully answer is conviction rates and the depth of the networks being dismantled — whether kingpins are being reached or whether street-level carriers continue to absorb the arrests. Those answers will come from consolidated seizure data and any forthcoming legislative proposals for tighter narcotics control, both of which the CMO has signalled as milestones to watch.

At 613 days and counting, Yudh Nashian Virudh is not winding down — and Punjab is watching every arrest number to see whether supply-side muscle alone can turn the tide.