An anti-drug activist is dead, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah travelled to Mansa, Punjab on Tuesday, October 20, 2026 to sit with the family of Parvinder Singh Jhota — a man who stood fearlessly against the chitta (heroin) trade and paid for it with his life. The murder, Shah declared in a bilingual Hindi-Punjabi post on X, has 'completely exposed' both the drug network and the crumbling law-and-order situation under the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab.

A family in mourning, a minister at their door

Shah visited the Jhota family's residence in Mansa — the district where Parvinder Singh Jhota had lived and waged his campaign against local drug peddlers — and offered what he described as sambal (strength and solace) in a moment of profound grief. 'His struggle to save Punjab's young generation from drugs will always be remembered,' Shah wrote, honouring Jhota's legacy directly to the family before taking the message public.

The visit carries unmistakable political weight: a Union minister arriving in an opposition-governed state to console the kin of a murder victim and simultaneously indicting the state government's record on narcotics and policing.

Chitta's grip on Punjab — and the political battle around it

Chitta, a white heroin-derived powder, has devastated Punjab's youth for over a decade, feeding off the state's long, porous border with Pakistan through which narcotics flow alongside weapons. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 provides the central legal architecture for enforcement, but ground-level policing remains a state responsibility — and it is precisely that responsibility that Shah is questioning.

Since the AAP government took power in March 2022, the BJP and Centre have repeatedly charged that drug trafficking has intensified under the Mann administration. The murder of a civilian activist who dared to challenge that trade publicly is, for Shah, the starkest possible proof. 'The drug trade in Punjab has reached its peak under the Bhagwant Mann government,' he stated flatly, framing the killing not as an isolated crime but as a systemic failure.

Shah's warning: 'No stone will be left unturned'

The Home Minister did not stop at condolence. He issued a direct warning to drug traffickers — calling them nasha ke saudagar (merchants of addiction) — and promised that 'the harshest possible action will be taken' against them. Crucially, he also pledged that no effort would be spared to free Punjab from the 'curse of chitta.'

Those words point toward a likely escalation of central enforcement presence in the state. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), which operates under the Home Ministry, is the instrument most readily available for such coordination — and its deployment in a BJP-versus-AAP flashpoint state would carry both operational and political significance.

Parvinder Singh Jhota did not carry a badge or a title. He carried the resolve of a citizen who refused to look away — and that, Shah insists, is exactly the kind of courage that Punjab's drug crisis demands. The state government will now face pointed questions about whether his killers are found, and how fast.