In July 2008, a local NGO, Burning Brain Society, had conducted a survey and submitted a list of tobacco vendors, with their photographs and locations, to the district magistrate’s office. Acting on the report, the DM had ordered their immediate removal. In a written complaint to the DM and the Home Secretary, Hemant Goswami, chairperson of the NGO, had stated that officials of the enforcement agencies were allowing vendors to continue their illegal business in exchange for monetary compensation.

He named the area opposite ISBT-17, the entrance of Police Headquarters, Sector 9, outside the Holiday Home, Sector 24, at the entry gates of Panjab University or PGIMER, outside Government Multi-Speciality Hospital, Sector 16, as “haunts of the tobacco vendors”.

The issue was also discussed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in October 2008, when Goswami produced a packet of “hashish” (cocaine), which he claimed to have purchased from a roadside tobacco vendor. Stunned, the Chief Justice remarked: “This is highly unfortunate, especially since the trade is being carried out so blatantly.”

UT Senior Standing Counsel Anupam Gupta had requested Goswami to share the details with him and he assured action will be taken against the guilty. “I will meet the UT Administrator in this regard and bring an end to this nexus between the police and drug mafia,” he said in court.

But the progress on the ground remains negligible. “We conduct regular checks to remove roadside vendors, but they keep returning. If we chase them off in the morning, they are back to their set-spots by late evening. But we shall intensify the checks,” said an official. “While a few ‘tainted’ police officers were placed under suspension for their alleged role in drug-peddling, the root cause of the menace — the roadside tobacco vendors — is yet to be weeded out,” said Goswami.