Tarn Taran: Although the Chief Minister of Punjab, Capt. Amarinder Singh has dedicated the second phase of the ‘DAPO Program’ at Tarn Taran to the people of Punjab today, but this is not the first time Chief Minister has started such movement against drugs from Tarn Taran it has been done in past as well. In fact, the campaign to leave the drugs was started about one and a half decade ago under then Tarn Taran senior Superintendent of police (SSP) Narender Bhargav.
At that time, the campaign was started taking seriously the issue of drug addiction to prevent youth and other people to fall in drugs by the officer, in which NGOs including rural youth clubs, panchayats and social welfare societies of cities and towns had participated.
When today campaign against drugs was started from Tarn Taran by Punjab Chief Minister, many people recalled the movement started by Narendra Bhargav and many intellectuals had said that if all the officers’ continued the movement honestly maybe Punjab does not have to look for prevention measure today.
It has been reported that during that period Tarn Taran was not a complete district as today and was a police district, the people from this area gave a huge support to the police and civil administration in such a manner that when Narinder Bhargava was transferred, more than 50 Panchayats and more than 100 Social welfare Clubs honored him without any slated program in a single day. At that time Guru Arjan Dev Society provided free treatment to the drug addicts and was happy with the performance of the police in every village, people had created Drugs Committees, and seminars were started to drop out on drugs in every senior secondary school and college and Youth clubs. villages were actively engaged to prevent people of drug addiction. A special arrangement was made to provide the youth drug addicts on the sports side and the youth had started taking part in large number in sports and started waking up in their minds to join the police department.
The movement had become so convincing that the Chief Minister, Capt. Amarinder Singh and the head of the Punjab Police were pleased with the action of senior police officer Narinder Bhargav and announced Rs 20 lakh for the Tarn Taran district (at that time it was a huge amount).