‘Chitta available like salt..’: In a Punjab village thrust into the limelight, grief and anger

About 100 people sat on durries in a wide lane, raising slogans against Cheema and the AAP government. Speakers took turns addressing the gathering just metres from the house of Gulzar Singh, a 53-year-old Dalit agricultural labourer who died after allegedly consuming a poisonous substance on Monday night.

The house lies in a lane so narrow that barely two two-wheelers can pass each other. Open drains run along the side.

Gulzar’s house tells its own story. A kutcha verandah opens into two rooms with unplastered walls. A third remains unfinished. The family cooks in one of the rooms, where Gulzar lived with his wife Pal Kaur, their three sons and his mother. On Tuesday, his absence was impossible to miss.

Gulzar had publicly questioned Cheema at a meeting at the village gurdwara on Sunday about the easy availability of chitta in the village. He told the minister that his own son was addicted and could obtain drugs easily.

His widow, Pal Kaur, alleged that what followed was humiliation.

“My husband asked Cheema where the drugs were coming from because our son gets them easily. Later, two policemen from Dirba police station dropped him home. In the evening, the village sarpanch called and said she would make him apologise for his mistake,” she said.

Pal Kaur alleged that on Monday, panchayat members came to their home and asked Gulzar to apologise to Baljit Singh alias Raj, the husband of village sarpanch Baljinder Kaur, by touching his feet. “My husband felt deeply humiliated,” she said.

Gulzar’s 23-year-old son, Sehbaz Singh, a BA second-year student at Government Ranbir College, Sangrur, said his father left home later that day.

“I don’t know whether he met the sarpanch or not. When he returned, he went to my uncle’s house in our lane and fell from his bicycle. He told my uncle that he had consumed poison because the sarpanch, panchayat members and others had humiliated him for questioning the finance minister,” Sehbaz said.

What followed was a desperate rush between hospitals.

“We reached Sangrur Civil Hospital around 1.30 pm. They referred him to Rajindra Hospital in Patiala. We reached there around 3 or 3.30 pm, but we could not get a ventilator. We returned to Sangrur and took him to a private hospital. Doctors gave him basic treatment and referred him to DMCH, Ludhiana. We reached there around 8 pm, and my father died later that night at around 11.30 pm,” Sehbaz said.

But Gulzar’s anguish, the family said, had been building for years around his eldest son Prabhjot Singh’s drug addiction.

“Prabhjot has been using drugs for more than five years. His body has become very weak. He sometimes steals things from the house and sells them,” Sehbaz said.

Prabhjot, visibly frail as he served water to visitors on Tuesday, acknowledged his addiction. “Yes, I got into this habit a few years ago. Chitta is available like salt. You can get it in Dirba and many other places. You only need money for a dose”.

Asked how he paid for it, he said: “I earn Rs 800 a day at times by doing daily-wage work and spend the same to meet my needs.”

The addiction has touched more than one household in the same narrow lane.

“My son died because of drug addiction two years ago, and another nephew died in July. Both lived in this same lane. Gulzar was terrified that his son could meet the same fate,” said Gulzar’s sister-in-law, Gurmail Kaur.

The grief soon spilled into anger.

When Jasbir Kaur Shergill, an AAP leader and chairman of the Dirba Market Committee, visited the family, villagers raised slogans and asked her to leave. Gulzar had recorded a video message before his death speaking about his alleged humiliation. When Shergill insisted that the voice in the video was AI-generated, villagers became agitated, said Binder Singh, a resident.

By Tuesday, the police had booked Baljit Singh alias Raj, sarpanch Baljinder Kaur, Sukhraj Singh alias Sukha Conductor, panchayat member Vicky and Gona Singh under provisions relating to abetment of suicide and the SC/ST Act. All five were arrested.

After hours of negotiations involving the family, police, district administration and the Zameen Prapti Sangharsh Committee (ZPSC), the family agreed to cremate Gulzar. Authorities constituted a four-member SIT under the supervision of ADGP Naunihal Singh. The government also agreed to provide a job to one family member and compensation under the SC/ST Act, said Bikar Singh, general secretary of the ZPSC.

Even then, the cremation remained tense.

One group demanded that Cheema’s name be included in the FIR. Logs of wood were thrown inside the cremation ground as arguments broke out. Heavy police deployment remained in place until the pyre was finally lit.

Cheema denied any role in the events leading to Gulzar’s death.

“Gulzar publicly raised the issue of drug availability, and I listened to him. I told the police to take action against those supplying drugs. I don’t know what happened on Monday or under what circumstances he consumed poison. The police are investigating, and they will act against whoever is responsible. No culprit will be spared,” Cheema told The Indian Express.

But in Toor Banzara, the questions stretched beyond the circumstances of one man’s death.

They were about a drug that villagers say is easily available, about a father fearing that addiction could kill him, about families burying young men, and about the humiliation Gulzar’s family says he carried home after speaking publicly about the problem.

Politicians began arriving as the day wore on. Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira visited the family, followed by leaders from the Akali Dal Waris Punjab De, Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP. AAP leaders largely kept their distance.