‘I could face terrorists, but not my son’s addiction’: Punjab ex-DGP Mohd Mustafa on 18-year battle against drugs at home

In a painfully candid conversation with The Indian Express, Mustafa opened up about his 18-year struggle to save his son, Aqil Akhtar, 35, from drug addiction. The fight ended in tragedy when he died earlier this month. Mustafa not only lost his son, but was also booked, along with his wife and former Congress Cabinet minister Razia Sultana in a case of alleged murder.

“As I was the STF chief, fighting the state’s battle against drugs, I fought a similar but personal battle against drugs at home,” he said. Mustafa was appointed to the post in September 2018 during former chief minister Amarinder Singh’s tenure. For him, the war against drugs turned inward, consuming his own home and family. “We lived through hell for 18 long years,” said Mustafa, who was posted in Punjab during the trouble-torn days of militancy.

Recalling the long struggle, he added, “I fought with the drugs at home for 18 years. I never failed in any war as a police officer but failed with the menace of drugs as a father.”

‘It all started in Class 9’

“It all started in 2007 when he was at a boys’ school in Dehradun. He was in Class 9. My friend’s driver told me he was climbing the walls of his school with another boy and using hookah. Soon after, he was rusticated from the school. Razia and I went to meet the principal. Upon our request, the principal gave us another chance. But after six months, he was terminated again. After that, he was terminated from various schools in Chandigarh, Panchkula and later from colleges in Chandigarh.”

“He was an intelligent boy. He has once cleared the entrance examination of a prestigious law college. It was in 2021 that he took admission in a law college and completed his degree. I brought him in contact with several lawyers for practice but he never continued with them on one pretext or the other.”

Recalling his son’s final attempt to recover, Mustafa said, “I took my son to a rehabilitation centre in Patiala last year. In fact, he went to the centre twice. He was there for a few weeks each time. Razia got into depression. She could not sleep. She had to be on medication. Then we got him back. We would order food for him through food-delivery apps. We spoke to the staff of the de-addiction centre every two hours. That was the situation. Then Razia insisted on bringing him back.”

“On October 14 this year, he called up his mother and said he wanted to go to the de-addiction centre again. I was travelling with my daughter from Delhi. Razia called me saying he wanted to go back to the rehabilitation centre. I heaved a sigh of relief. I made all arrangements, called up the centre and even asked my wife to be strong this time. He had prepared his bag which we discovered after his death. We cried so much after seeing the bag. Had he gone with the bag to the de-addiction centre, he would have been alive today,” Mustafa said.

“Aqil died on October 16. By the time we found him dead, rigor mortis had already set in. It was not unusual for him to not show up. My daughter said he had not opened the door that day. She insisted on checking. When she knocked, he did not open the door. She threatened him that if he did not open it, they would call the police. Still, there was no response. There was panic. My wife came and so did my daughter-in-law with my grandchildren. She managed to get into his room through the balcony door which was not latched,” recalled Mustafa, a four-time winner of the President’s Police medal.

“She insisted that we take him to the hospital. She hoped against hope. I knew, as a police officer, that he was no more. Yet, we took him to Panchkula hospital in our car. They conducted an ECG on him and declared that he was no more. I ensured that his post-mortem was also conducted,” he added.

‘CBI probe will silence the gossip’

“You can imagine this father’s sorrow. Yet, there are people who are alleging a conspiracy. I welcomed the First Information Report (FIR) registered by the police. I welcome the formation of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) and now I also welcome that the Haryana Police wants to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI will investigate it threadbare. I will come out of it clean. My grief is my son’s loss. I do not care about anything else. The CBI investigation will silence all this gossip,” he said.

“My son never sat with me,” he added quietly. “Some periods were violent, disturbing, and upsetting… Some were sober. The best period was between March 2021 and 2024. This was when we put him on buprenorphine. I was the STF chief. I saw that this was the drug being given to addicts to wean them off in Punjab. We spoke to a doctor who recommended buprenorphine. But he started taking a higher amount than was recommended. He was using his father’s name to procure it. I used to call up doctors and tell them to give the recommended doses only,” said the retired police officer.

He added, “I failed. I could not choke the supply for 18 years despite trying my level best. When we were living in a government bungalow in Sector 39 when my wife was the MLA, peddlers used to throw packets in our backyard. This was before 2015. Then we shifted to my current residence in Panchkula. I still remember how someone from Saharanpur, my hometown, came to my house. I continued my usual business, but later I discovered that he had delivered drugs to my son.”

“We used to check his phone to find out the numbers of peddlers. I got hundreds of peddlers arrested by the police. Yet, could not break his chain. This was my battle for 18 years. I tried my best but could not choke the supply chain. In 10 days, they used to be out. There are so many loopholes in the system. They exploited those.”

“I wouldn’t say my son was constantly on drugs. Sometimes he was off and sometimes he was on. I can say medical narcotics are the worst. Once, he set my room on fire. He was asking for money for drugs, I refused. He set the room ablaze with the help of a cigarette lighter. My cook, Bir Singh, was dousing it when he fainted due to the smoke. He had to be taken to a hospital. This has been our plight. We just handled this all alone. We did not want anyone to know. It was a lonely fight. When your son is an addict, you would not like the world to know about it,” he said.

From 2018, the ‘worst phase’

“The worst phase of our life was from December 2018. Aqil had got married in November 2017, when he was in a sober phase. However, the menace later magnified. He took money from us on the pretext of shopping and bought drugs with that money. Earlier, he was only on weed. After that, he bought heroin, medical narcotics, and what not. On November 25, 2018, our granddaughter was born. She was 35 days old on December 31, 2018. I was the STF chief then. He asked his mother for money. I told her no money is to be given to him as he will buy drugs.”

“After I left for the office, he got violent at home. My wife shut my daughter-in-law and granddaughter in the bathroom. He was so violent that he threw a stone table top at the window. The window had a secure glass. The glass did not give way, but the stone table top was broken into small pieces. He was so powerful. I do not know from where he got so much strength. That was the day he set my room on fire. I was on my way to my office and had reached near Raj Bhavan when I got a call from home that he was violent. I returned. For two hours, I was really upset. But then, after two hours, the father in me took over… Later, he was sober for some time,” Mustafa said.

Recalling another terrible phase in March 2023, the former officer said, “His friend, the son of an affluent family – I do not want to name him – introduced him to a drug dealer. This boy was in touch with him for 15 years. I tried my best to snap their contact. I changed my son’s phone number. But to no avail. Each time, they reconnected. He gave him ice (crystal meth). That was when his brain got damaged. He got psychosis.”

Constant allegations, assault on wife

“What he recorded in the video on August 27, 2025 – alleging that I had an illicit relationship with my daughter-in-law, and that my wife and daughter were running a prostitution racket – is not even one-tenth of what he used to say otherwise. He used to say that all politicians come to our house to satisfy their lust,” Mustafa said.

“Last year, in April-end, he tortured his wife and shot her video. He beat her up with belts and asked her to confess that she was a prostitute before she married him. You will shudder at the video in which she was being beaten up and forced to say these things. My daughter-in-law appeared to be half-dead. We got up in the morning and he came running to our room saying she had confessed everything. He even alleged that my younger brother, who was a warden at the college she studied, had a relationship with her.”

Describing another incident, he said that Aqil once put his arm around his wife’s neck and pulled her out of his room. “When he was coming out of the lobby, my daughter and I ran towards them. In the melee, I fractured my thumb. Then I thought enough was enough. I called Shibas Kabiraj, who was Police Commissioner of Panchkula for his first term. He sent the Station House Officer (SHO) in five minutes. We handed Aqil over to him. I drafted a formal complaint, giving a 16-year history of his addiction. His mother, sister and wife cried.”

However, it did not last. “I was trying to take a stand. But I also gave in. We then called the police and said we want to withdraw our complaint. A father is helpless,” said Mustafa, adding, “Then we rented the first floor of our neighbour’s place for our daughter-in-law and grandchildren for Rs 60,000 per month. They stayed there, having food in our house.”

‘I failed to choke the supply chain’

“I could not choke the supply for 18 years,” Mustafa repeated. “This was my battle. I tried my best. Still, I could not choke the supply chain.” After decades in uniform and countless encounters with Punjab’s narcotics networks, the officer was left broken as a father. “You can fight terrorists,” he said, “but you cannot fight drugs when they take over your own child.”

Recalling how his son had prophesied his death, Mustafa said, “In his diary, written a few days before his death, he wrote about how he loved his children but at the same time said that he feared he might die due to an overdose.” Aqil’s daughter is seven years old, while his son is five.

The worst is yet to come, Mustafa said. “We will have to face this tragedy after the final prayers for him on Saturday. Till now, we have been surrounded by friends and relatives. What will happen after that, once we are left to handle our grief on our own? My grandchildren are in school. They will eventually go to college. I will have to be a father to them also.”