Field reporting from Punjab's villages found a street market transformed: no permanent sale points of the kind police used to raid, and no open sale at village grocery shops. Dealers take orders on WhatsApp and deliver to pre-decided locations for cash. Enforcement moves the price, not the availability: one gram of chitta rose from under ₹1,000 to about ₹1,500 after the 2022–23 enforcement surge.
Source: LatestLY (Feb 2023)
Behind the gram sits a steep ladder. Older industry estimates — dated, from 2013–14 reporting, and flagged as such — put heroin at roughly ₹1–2 lakh per kg in Pakistan, doubling to about ₹3 lakh after crossing, ₹8–10 lakh per kg moving Punjab-to-Delhi and ₹16–20 lakh in Mumbai. A 2026 analysis puts the full Afghanistan-to-India markup at roughly 500-fold. Treat the exact rungs with caution; the shape of the ladder is not in dispute.
Source: Industry estimates via SikhNet/BlueLight (2013–14, dated); IPANewsPack analysis (Oct 2026)
The human cost surfaced brutally on October 13, 2026, when anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota was shot dead by medical store owner Ashwani Kumar in Mansa, during a Facebook Live confrontation over alleged sales of intoxicating substances. Four of Jhota's associates were injured; a mob later torched the shop. Reporting afterwards exposed the enforcement gaps around the accused: he had served a jail term, returned in 2023, had his premises raided repeatedly and an arms licence cancelled — then was granted a fresh arms licence in 2024. The local SHO was suspended two days after the killing. Meanwhile the drug mix itself is shifting: police and NCB reporting note rising pharmaceutical opioids, intravenous use and synthetic drugs among Punjab's youth.