Gulzar was a simple daily-wage man, around 47. His son got hooked on chitta – you know that deadly drug that’s everywhere in Punjab these days. The addiction was so bad they even sold their house. On 6th September, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema came to their village for some public meeting. Gulzar stood up and asked the one question that was eating him inside: “Minister saab, why is chitta still being sold so openly? My son is ruined, why hasn’t the government stopped this?”
That was it. Just that one question.
According to his family, after the meeting some local people, including panchayat members, started pressuring him. They told him to apologise, to take his words back. The next day the poor man swallowed poison. They kept shifting him from one hospital to another – Sangrur, then Patiala, back again, private hospital, finally DMC Ludhiana. He died on the night of 7th September. In a video he made before dying, he clearly named the minister and a few local leaders, saying they pushed him to this point.
Police have booked five people – the sarpanch and some others – under abetment of suicide and SC/ST Act because Gulzar was from the Dalit community. But the minister’s name is not in the FIR yet. An SIT has been formed. Even the National Commission for Scheduled Castes has asked the Punjab government for a full report.
This morning Rahul Gandhi put out a strong post. He said a dangerous pattern is coming out in Punjab’s AAP government – if you question their failures, they reply with threats and torture. He wrote that Gulzar, a Dalit man who watched his own son get destroyed by drugs, only asked the Finance Minister why the government failed so badly in stopping the drug trade. For that simple question they tortured him, humiliated him, and pressured him so hard to apologise that he took poison. Then they moved him from hospital to hospital and he died without proper treatment.
Rahul’s exact words were: “The government’s job is to answer to the people, not to crush those who ask questions.” He demanded that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann immediately ask for Harpal Cheema’s resignation and order a proper independent investigation, and that the minister’s name should be put in the FIR. He also mentioned another young man, Mohanjeet Singh, who was allegedly tortured for protesting against the CM last week.
Opposition is going full throttle. BJP wants both Mann and Cheema to resign and is talking about CBI probe. Akali Dal leaders are saying the dying declaration cannot be ignored. Congress leaders in Punjab are calling it the shameful face of the government.
AAP side is calling it “vulture politics.” The minister says he listened to Gulzar properly and even asked police to act on the drug suppliers. Local panchayat people are denying any harassment.
But the real issue remains. Punjab has been fighting this drug problem for years. Governments come and go, big campaigns are run, yet fathers still have to stand up in public meetings and ask the same painful question. And when one of them ends up dead after asking, it stops being just another news story.
Rahul has framed it as crushing of those who question. You can agree or disagree with the politics, but the demand is simple – fair probe, justice for the family, and if the allegations are true, real accountability. Gulzar’s family is left with nothing but grief and the hope that someone will finally listen. And for the rest of Punjab, that same question is still hanging in the air – why hasn’t the drug trade been stopped?
Sources: Times of India, Indian Express, NDTV, The Tribune, India Today, ANI, The Hindu.
@Rohit Manral
