Kharar: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Wednesday, October 28, called on women across Punjab to turn their villages and neighbourhoods into the first line of defence against the drug trade, urging the party's women's wing, Maavan Dheeyan Di Fauj, to organise traditional 'thikri pehra' — community night patrols — in every village and mohalla to curb drug trafficking, IANS reported.

Addressing a gathering of women at a Maavan Dheeyan Di rally in Kharar, Badal said the fight against drugs was deeply personal for Punjab's women, who had borne the brunt of the crisis as families struggled with its consequences. "For the women of Punjab, ending the scourge of drugs is their number one priority," she said, adding that the SAD had launched a women-led campaign against drugs because women had suffered the most from the menace. She called on women to identify those allegedly involved in selling drugs and those suspected of protecting them, arguing that community vigilance and collective action could expose the trade and hold those responsible accountable.

Badal also set out what she said a SAD government would do if voted to power in the 2027 assembly elections: establish a special task force headed by a woman Director General of Police to take on the drug mafia, and bring stricter laws, including a proposed 10-year denial of bail to drug traffickers and confiscation of traffickers' properties, with the proceeds intended to compensate victims. These are campaign promises, not policy in force; the bail and confiscation proposals would require legislation and would be tested against due-process standards if ever enacted.

The speech tied the patrol call to a series of recent cases that Badal alleged show people who speak against drugs being intimidated. She referred to the reported removal of Daljit Singh's body by police in Mansa while his mortal remains were being taken to a protest site, alleging that his family members were assaulted when they tried to stop the police — an allegation the police have not been reported as accepting, in a case where the cause of death itself remains unestablished and under post-mortem and NHRC scrutiny. She also referred to the reported detention of a CISF constable who had raised allegations of drug use at Government Rajindra Hospital in Patiala, to Mohanjit Singh, who she alleged was tortured after protesting against the drug trade, and to Gulzar Singh of Dirba, who she said died by suicide after being harassed for questioning the alleged sale of 'chitta'. She further alleged that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had refused to meet the family of slain anti-drug campaigner Parvinder Singh Jhota. All of these are her allegations; no AAP government response to the Kharar speech was reported in the sources.

The Tribune reported a second Badal meeting the same day at Ghanaur, where she made the same law-and-order charge against the AAP government, repeated the woman-DGP task force promise, and cited women she said had lost multiple children to drugs, including Manjit Kaur of Sultanpur Lodhi, who she said lost five sons, and Preeto, who she said lost four children. Together, the two stops mark the SAD putting drugs — and women voters — at the centre of its early 2027 pitch, with village-level patrols as the visible ground tactic and a promised enforcement overhaul as the policy offer. Whether the patrols actually form, and whether they operate within the law alongside the police rather than parallel to it, are questions the campaign has not yet answered.