Farming unviable, drug money runs households

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 10

With the anti-drug drive losing steam after just eight months of the Congress rule and farming becoming an unviable venture, hapless farmers are increasingly becoming couriers to keep their hearth fires burning.

Of late, cracks have appeared in the special drive. Heroin (chitta) and smack — a low-grade heroin derivative — have made a comeback.

Earlier, de-addiction centres at the Gurdaspur and Batala civil hospitals were overcrowded, but in October chitta was again on the streets.

Romesh Mahajan, who runs a de-addiction centre, said without employment, it was difficult to wean the youth off the drugs. If Pakistan was the root cause of this problem, then why was the drug menace only two decades old?

“The government’s policy to curb opium created a vacuum in the market, which was filled by the more costly heroin. A parallel can be seen in Rajasthan where they closed shops selling opium and poppy husk, but it opened a big market for heroin,” says Mahajan.

The recent recovery of 55 kg of pure heroin by the BSF from near the border in Kalanaur proves that the dope pipeline was open.

Strangely, no agency taking the credit for the seizure ever tells who were the drugs meant for or who was going to peddle them.

Police officials claim that for every kg recovered, 10 kg makes it way to the markets as far as Delhi and Goa. The brass should realise that the problem lies in demand. Disrupting the supply will never kill the demand. After Dinanagar and Pathankot terror attacks, the rates of heroin increased dramatically to Rs 3,000 per gram due to increased surveillance. Now things are back to square one, they pointed out.

Ferozepur.
Govt apathetic, dope only hope

With spiralling farm input costs and low returns, many farmers with land across the barbed wire find smuggling an attractive proposition. It is their only hope.

“Every year, the Sutlej wreaks havoc on our crops or wild boars damage it and the state help is absent,” rued Swaran Singh, a farmer. 

“The compensation is too meagre to tide over for the season. As bank procedures are cumbersome, we often borrow from arhtiyas at high rate of interest, which we are later unable to pay. And it becomes a vicious circle,” he added.

“Sometimes, drugs offer the only solace in such hard times. After becoming addicts, smuggling is just a small step for many farmers,” reveals Karan Singh, secretary, Border Kisan Union.

Economic distress negates the risk of getting caught, public humiliation or even imprisonment. “The only alternative is to commit suicide, which many farmers are doing these days,” said Guram Singh, another farmer.

A former sarpanch, seeking anonymity, said he owned 10 acres in the DT Mal Enclave. He was forced to sell the land and even his house to clear debt. Subsequently, he was arrested for stealing motorcycles and then drug smuggling. 

Another farmer having land across the fencing took to drug peddling due to regular losses. Eventually, his son became an addict and later died due to overdose.

The list of such cases is endless. Another debt-ridden farmer, Manav Singh, suffered brain haemorrhage when his son was nabbed near the fencing with drugs.

Jarnail Singh sold four acres to bail out his son in an NDPS Act case.

Though the BSF keeps an eye on farmer movements, the latter keep changing smuggling strategies.

Dr Kaustubh Sharma, zonal director, Narcotics Control Bureau, said couriers were paid between Rs 70,000 and Rs 1 lakh per kg these days.

“Due to socio-economic factors, poor farmers give in to the temptation of easy money. Youngsters too are attracted by the lure of easy money,” he added.

Intelligence sources said Pak-based peddlers have adopted a new strategy — they throw mobile phones over the fencing and then entice farmers with offers of money to act as drug couriers.

“Pakistani SIMs work well in 20 pockets in our territory,” said a BSF official.

Amritsar.
Junkies selling utensils to get drugs

Jeet Singh (60) of Shukarchak village owns 22 kanal and is a man of modest means. Till his son started selling household goods and even utensils to get his daily fix of drugs.

“You must have not noticed the frequency of scrap dealers in villages along the borders. At least four such dealers visit our village daily,” he revealed.

“We do not have any iron mine here. Obviously, the sale of household goods by addicts is bringing them here,” he said.

The same is true for chemist shops. The village and its surrounding area do not have a hospital or even a government dispensary but it has four crowded chemist shops.

Jeet Singh has lost the count of the times, with help from his married daughters and a brother living abroad, he sent his strapping son to drug de-addiction centres. Presently, his son is admitted at one such centre.

Sensing the scope of de-addiction centres in this belt, a new centre has come up at Sarai Amanant Khan, barely 3 km from Shukarchak.

“The drugs are flowing freely and everyone knows who sells these,” said a resident of Sarai Amanat Khan village.

As many as 100 addicts gather at the OST centre at the Civil Hospital daily to get their daily dose of buprenorphine, used to treat addiction.

However, for a person taking a dose of 9 mg initially would have to continue the treatment for nine years and that too if he remains off drugs.

On the other hand, small farmers are willing to work as couriers for even Rs 400 to Rs 500 for supplying small quantities of heroin to consumers.

Quoting the cop-smuggler nexus, the Sarai Amanat Khan resident said a peddler was caught but bailed out in the case with the help of police officials.

Villagers said smugglers in border villages could be identified from their palatial houses as most of them do not own big landholdings.

Fazilka.
Haven for bootleggers

Mahalam village is infamous for illicit liquor (lahan) and falls in the Jalalabad Assembly constituency represented by SAD president and former Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal. Although a quiet hamlet, about 1,550 residents out of the total 4,000 have been booked under the Excise Act and the NDPS Act.

Bootlegging here is a cottage industry and liquor is stored in trenches with a capacity of 1,000 to 5,000 litres.

The recoveries are mindboggling. As many as 1.05 lakh litre of lahan were recovered on June 3 this year, 65,000 litre on July 19, 2012, 50,000 litre on May 15 last year, 24,800 litre in December 2015 and 20,000 litre on May 3 this year besides the frequent seizures of 5,000 to 10,000 litres.

Some residents had on June 7, 2015, set up a distillation unit in the village’s government primary school when it was closed for summer vacations. 

Sarpanch Om Parkash claimed that after constituting Nasha Mukti (drug-free) Club, the work of illegal distillation had been reduced and only about 15-20 families were still involved in the trade.

— Inputs by Ravi Dhaliwal, PK Jaiswar, Manmeet Singh Gill, Anirudh Gupta and Praful Chander Nagpal