Drug abuse rampant among youth in Indian occupied Kashmir

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir (AA) – Mushtaq Ahmad, 55, in the Indian occupied Kashmir was struck with tragedy last year when his younger son died of a drug overdose at the age of 17.

“We found him locked inside a washroom and when we opened the door, he was lying lifeless near the toilet,” Ahmad shared on International Day of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, marked on June 26.

For Ahmad and his family, it was hard to believe that his son could be consuming drugs till the time he actually died.

“He always behaved like a normal child. There was hardly any change in his behavior. He studied well and was home on time. We never thought that he is addicted to something,” Ahmad said.

In conflict-torn Kashmir, drug abuse has been rampant with rehabilitation centers receiving nearly 40 to 70 new and follow-up patients every day.

“We are heading toward an unimaginable catastrophe,” said Dr. Yasir Rather, a consulting psychiatrist who heads the Drug De-Addiction Centre at a tertiary hospital.

“Nearly 90% of cases are heroin users and 70% of them are using illicit drugs through Intravenous mode,” Rather said.

This mode of administration he said is dangerous and can lead to overdoses and deaths as it leads to the transmission of deadly infections like HCV, HBV, and HIV and also endocarditis, which is an infection of heart valves.

“It is an epidemic,” he said.

The stigma

Ahmad hides the cause of his son’s death just to avoid the stigma and “criminal sense” that people attach to the victims of drug abuse.

“I always tell people, even my relatives, that my son died a natural death. I don’t want people to hate him or take him as a criminal just because he was trapped in this abuse,” Ahmad said tearfully.

Immediate family members of those who die of drug overdose often cover it up to lessen the burden and societal shame that is attached to it.

However, experts say there is a need for proper investigation of death and the cause needs to be determined and recorded.

Presently, the hospitals in the Kashmir region lack any specific data on drug overdose deaths, and almost all of these deaths are attributed to heart attacks or road accidents.

Experts say already in just a few years, cardiac arrests among young people have drastically increased pointing to the rampant use of drugs, mainly the use of heroin and cocaine.

Living under Indian occupation with routine military crackdowns, lockdowns, arrests and killings by the Indian army has made life unpredictable and uncertain for Kashmiri youth. Raging poverty and unemployment due to lack of development and progress while living under occupation has made prospects dim for the region’s youth. All these factors make young people easy targets of drug dealers and vulnerable victims of drug abuse.

* The name of the father of a drug abuse victim has been changed.