PUNJAB: March 26, 2016, was a tragic turning point for Mukhtiar Singh and Bhupinder Kaur. The couple lost their young son Manjeet Singh, an undergraduate, to drugs. The couple, out of sheer frustration, offered his shroud cloth to the government, demanding an end to rampant drug addiction in rural areas of Punjab.
That was only a sad reflection of a sheer sense of vengeance against the evil. Mukhtiar Singh, 50, had to take another big step— in his own capacity, in his own right.
The assistant linesman with the Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd posted in Khem Karan, decided to go door-to-door. Patti, a nondescript border town in Taran Taran district of Punjab, is the couple’s battlefield.
He wears a black cloak upon which he has written in bold white: Kafan Bol Peya (the coffin has spoken). He and his wife warn residents how drugs are ruining families and the need to protect children from falling into the deadly habit.“Successive governments have done little… the situation on the ground remains as bad as ever,’’ he says.
The couple visits at least five families each weekend, urging them that if their children are into drugs, they should not hide it and tell the society and the authorities so that their child gets proper care and treatment. “By doing so, they would help the police in arresting the drug suppliers”.“Two families have handed the bodies of their children to me for cremation and have publically acknowledged that their loved ones died due to drugs,” says Mukhtiar. In other cases, he says, the families know their children were into drugs and died, but do not acknowledge it due to social stigma and pressure from society and police.
Mujhtiar suffered a clot in the brain recently. “We are not as frequent in our visits, but we try to visit as many families as we can,’’ he says.
Singh has found a novel way to express himself to the villagers. “I tell them when the wheat crop is about to be harvested, it is dried many times. Sometimes, it catches fire due to an electric spark or half-burnt cigarette. So everyone rushes to save their crop. In the same way, we have to get together to save our future generation.’’
Singh says there is no difference between the recent hooch tragedy in the state in which 121 people died and drugs which cause far more deaths.
“All political parties raise hue and cry for some time and then forget all about it. We need a sustained campaign to rid the state of this evil,” he adds. The villagers of Patti say they need more Mukhtiars to help them achieve the near-impossible task.