Deaths by drug overdose on rise in Jammu

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, June 26

On May 29 this year, hundreds of enraged residents gathered at the Jammu-Srinagar national highway near Narwal on the outskirt of Jammu city to lodge their protest against the death of a teenager, Rahil Kumar, due to overdose of brown sugar.

People’s anger against the failure of the authorities to check the drug menace can be gauged from the protest because it was for the first time they had taken to streets against drug abuse.

Drug abuse is taking the lives of youth in the Jammu region. Families, fearing social stigma, used to keep it under wraps, but they are finally running out of patience.

“Drugs consumed the life of my son, but I want to save other children from substance abuse so we were demanding that the policemen-drug peddler nexus must be broken,” Ashok Kumar, father of Rahil Kumar, had said at the time of his son’s death.

Today, while addressing a function to create awareness among people against drug addiction, Deputy Inspector General, Jammu-Kathua range, Ashkoor Wani admitted that deaths due to drug addiction had been going on unabated.

“It is an alarming situation. During the last one year, the recovery of drugs has increased manifold and so have the cases registered against the drug mafia but reports of deaths due to this menace continue to pour in,” the DIG said.

In 2014, the police had solved the mysterious death of the girl after busting an interstate drug racket by arresting three persons. The girl was found unconscious in front of her house due to drug overdose. She later died in hospital.

Then Senior Superintendent of Police, Jammu, Uttam Chand, had said on record that two suspects picked up by the police had admitted that they had injected narcotics into the girl on the fateful day. They also revealed that the girl was a drug addict and used to take heroin from them.

Sources said narcotics business was flourishing in J&K because of the nexus between drug peddlers and policemen.

People have a reason to point a finger of suspicion at policemen because a Sub-Inspector (SI) was recently arrested for his connivance with drug peddlers. The police officer used to work as a courier for the drug mafia.

Earlier also, policemen have been arrested for their involvement with the drug mafia in the state.

On June 8, the J&K Police busted an international drug cartel by recovering drugs worth Rs 75 crore from four persons.

Team Jammu —- a social group working against drug abuse in Jammu, claimed that 162 deaths had been reported in Jammu district due to drug addiction in the last two and a half years.

“Due to the social stigma, people are not coming forward to disclose the cause of the death but it is a reality that deaths due to drugs are going on unabated in this region,” claimed Zorawar Singh Jamwal, Team Jammu chairman.