Death row convict Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was convicted in the 1995 assassination of then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, on Tuesday said the issue of Punjab’s drug problem was a distraction technique employed by governments to divert attention from real issues.Rajoana made the remarks while being taken from Patiala Central Jail to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, for an eye examination.Rajoana said the availability of drugs would continue as long as there was demand for them.He alleged that the government and police had the capability to curb the menace but were deliberately not taking adequate action.He further claimed that the issue was often used as a distraction to divert public attention from other pressing concerns faced by people in the state.Speaking to reporters after the medical check-up, Rajoana said he had spent 31 years in prison and that despite 43 hearings in the Supreme Court, his case remained undecided.He said the non-disposal of his mercy petition for the past 15 years amounted to a violation of human rights.He said he had recently written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but had not received any response.Rajoana also disclosed that a delegation led by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Harjinder Singh Dhami had met him at Patiala Central Jail to discuss the pending mercy petition.“Before visiting PGI, SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami met me in jail. I told them that if no decision is taken on my petition, the SGPC should decide on the matter according to Sikh traditions,” Rajoana said.A former Punjab Police constable, Rajoana was convicted for his role in the assassination of Chief Minister Beant Singh, who was killed in a bomb blast at the Punjab Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995.According to investigators, Rajoana was the backup suicide bomber in the conspiracy in case the primary plan failed.He was sentenced to death by a special CBI court in 2007 and has remained on death row for the past 18 years.The Union Ministry of Home Affairs stayed his execution in 2012 after the SGPC filed a mercy petition seeking commutation of his death sentence. The petition remains pending.