Days after The Indian Express investigation on the drug crisis gripping Bihar, leaders across the political spectrum raised concerns and urged immediate action.

RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha said his party has raised red flags about the prohibition policy – Bihar is a dry state – since its early years. “We have been flagging this since the completion of the first year itself. Since 2018 onwards, we have been raising concerns that there are serious flaws in the prohibition policy,” he told The Indian Express.

Jha alleged that prohibition had created “a kind of nexus involving people from the government, the law enforcement machinery, ordinary citizens and even small children”.

Warning that “Bihar could surpass Punjab” in the scale of its drug problem, he pointed to the state’s border with Nepal and its proximity to Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal, where prohibition is not in force.

“If, after this report, the government simply sits on it and assumes that everything is rosy, we are preparing our…