“What was once an occasional sneak out, to smoke and then return to our homes to get some moments of blissful sleep, now feels like a never-ending slumber,” say Mushtaq and Ahmed*.
For these two school friends, now in their late 20s, what started as a ‘harmless’ pursuit of smoking a joint – a mixture of tobacco and hashish – to escape “the humdrum of their families and social life”, has now become an inescapable hellhole. That’s not what they imagined when they started. By the time they realized that they had been caught in the grip of deadly drugs, it was too late.
Describing themselves as ex-addicts, addicted to Heroin, they and their families say their worst experience is now behind them. But the nightmarish memory of those days of addiction still haunts Mushtaq and Ahmed.
Ahmed recalls with a shudder what it felt like: “A lump in the throat, not able to swallow or vomit out, with the itching body, but nowhere to scratch, sweat dancing as the body descends with the gravity, but there is no gravity so there is no fall and most probably there will be no impact. You aren’t running but you could feel the warm blood hitting on the cold walls of your veins, could feel the struggling heart pumping manually, you feel every muscle in your own command, you are controlling thoughts as you breathe. You are running at the speed so infinite that everything that crosses your path is immensely slow, the river flowing and every froth and foam is visible, a car rushing every rim is countable, a person speaking every syllable is differentiable.”
Mushtaq remembers it too: “You can recognize every fleck of your hair and every sensation on your skin, every air molecule that is hitting your skin, you feel them dancing and tinkering with your cells, and in this moment all your pain, all the agony, all the revenge, all the love, all the obedience, every promise, every memory, every reason to live and to suffer, is gone, gone in the fraction of the blink of your eyes.”
Mushtaq and his friend Ahmed come from middle-class families on the outskirts of Srinagar. While Mushtaq’s father has a pharmacy shop, Ahmed’s father is a retired government employee, and both worry about the future and health of their sons, even as they are glad that their sons have now “overcome their addiction.”
Staggering Scale of Drug Abuse
Mushtaq and Ahmed are among the several thousands of youths in Kashmir afflicted by a serious drug crisis. The 2022 Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS) survey of Kashmir's 10 districts estimated 52,404 dependent individuals, primarily aged 17-33, with 85.3% to 95% using heroin. Alarmingly, 61.2% (approx. 32,097) of users inject drugs, resulting in high Hepatitis C prevalence (up to 72% in clinical settings) and a daily syringe usage of 33,000. IMHANS (Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences) Srinagar is the primary facility for all drug victims.
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, last month announced a 100-day campaign to make Jammu and Kashmir ‘nasha-mukt’ (free of intoxication), resulting in sweeping arrests of alleged drug peddlers and demolition and attachment of properties of the accused. The crackdown has been widely welcomed, but the method has triggered some criticism. Amidst this focused attention on Jammu and Kashmir’s drug crisis, Mushtaq and Ahmed’s story reveals the multiple implications of an overload of drug abuse in every sphere of life in the region.
For health experts, it’s an epidemic; for police, it’s a street menace; for security forces, it’s law and order; for the administration, it is “concerning”; for society, it’s “increase in immodesty”; and for those families whose kin are caught in its vicious cycle, it remains a struggle in oblivion.
The staggering statistics on drug abuse since 2022 have finally gotten some attention. But, experts point out that the crisis is not new, even as recent years show a massive scale of escalation.
Since early 1990s, more than a dozen research papers have been published along the lines of what constitutes and accounts for this use of drugs in Kashmir. As early as 1991, a study conducted by renowned Psychiatrist of Kashmir Dr Mushtaq Magroob in his paper, ‘Drug Abuse in Kashmir – Experience from a Psychiatric Disease Hospital’, collected a data of patients, who were registered in the Psychiatric Diseases Hospital, Srinagar between 1980 to 1988, shockingly found the alarming presence of heroin abusers which were non-existent before 1984. It ranked second in the out-patient department in a span of nine years.
The study also reveals that despite the longest period of drug use, Cannabis abusers had the lowest rate of drug dependence (29.9%) and multiple drug abuse (6.1%), while heroin abusers had the highest rate of drug dependence (88.8%) and multiple drug abuse (83.4%).
The study concluded: “The almost daily reports of big seizures of substances of abuse like charas and heroin in the local press and the increase in frequency of related arrests are a clear indication that the menace is touching new heights and the situation will eventually become explosive. Urgent steps must be taken to curb it before it’s too late.”
The 2018 report by National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC), AIIMS titled "Magnitude of Substance Use in India" found that Jammu & Kashmir had significantly higher opioid prevalence rates compared to the national average, identifying it as one of the most affected regions. The comprehensive study, commissioned by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, estimated that nearly 4.47 lakh people were using opioids in the region.
A study in 2019, ‘Factors contributing to the problem of drug abuse among the adolescents in Kashmir Valley’ published on International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews (IJRAR), found that the menace of drug abuse among the young was a result of multiple reasons: political turmoil, conflict, violence, ruthless exploitation of humanity, rapid unemployment rate, mismanagement of the economy, lack of economic progress, lack of good governance, growing mental stress, social exclusion, curiosity to experiment with new drugs, socio-economic disparities, marginalisation and underdevelopment, illicit production and distribution, illicit drug trafficking, drug peddling, easy availability of drugs, corrupted law enforcement agencies, low family and religious control etc.
These findings were similar to another study published in 2017, ‘Mental Health and Cannabis abusers of Kashmir Valley’.
The World Drug Report 2021 states that one in every three substance abusers are women, the recent research conducted in Kashmir reveal the same horrifying trend, the research by IMHANS in 2018 showed that out of 70,000 substance abusers, 4000 were women and the following 2023 study by IMHANS revealed that the women seeking treatment was very low:10 in 2020 and 48 in 2022 were the number of women that sought treatment.
The Grooming Kashmir De-Addiction Centre highlighted as Srinagar’s first private rehablitation centre exclusively for women, founded in 2019, reflected the growing institutional recognition of gender specific needs.
The recent crackdown by the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, and the ongoing campaign, highlights the urgency of the crisis.
An Unending Loop
Research spanning three decades identifies the primary drivers of increasing drug abuse in Kashmir as a progressive shift from early curiosity and peer pressure to conflict-induced psychological trauma, economic hopelessness, and the ready availability of high-purity heroin. Ahmed is not sure which of these reasons applies to him.
“How we got into it was a choice, maybe, but the path that leads you here was definitely not a choice,” Ahmed says, describing how he became an addict.
“The first time a guy from our neighborhood got Heroin was in 2019. I had just returned from Delhi, where I was working in a private company in Delhi, where my health was impacted by the unbearable heat and pollution. A severe bout of jaundice finally made me quit my job and return home. I flew back to get better at home. By then, Kashmir was in panic mode, ahead of August 5, 2019, amidst news of deployment of more troops and tourists being flown out of the Valley,” he recalls.
He goes on, “People had started panic buying. I too went out to get a Joint, from my regular seller. He said that he has something better …... Heroin. I told him I don’t have the money for this. My seller said that I can pay him later and that this new thing is going to replace ‘other stuff ‘forever.” Ahmed says, he fell for the bait, not realizing the consequences and Mushtaq joined him later that week.
Heroin is considered to be one of the worst and most addictive drugs, Professor Gabor Mate, a renowned Psychologist and de-addiction specialist in his book ‘In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with Addiction’ mentions Heroin as a one-time addiction and writes, “A single 5 gram shot of Heroin makes the person addict and H-dependent. As soon as the effects fade, he starts seeking more of it.”
Ahmed echoes that with memory from experience. Long after the addiction is over, the aftereffects don’t go away, he reveals.
Counseling Sessions that Weigh
Finally, that troubling history of six years is behind them. For the past four months, both Mushtaq and Ahmed are undergoing treatment, therapy, and counselling sessions to wean them from drugs fully. But the process is long drawn, exhausting and almost like a punishment.
Ahmed and Mushtaq reveal the counseling sessions are heavy, too difficult to absorb. When asked, how he initially felt about the counseling session, Ahmed’s answer is not simple. It is descriptive, fleshing out an abstract mind.
“My head never rests inside a counseling session,” he says. “The mind keeps on gatekeeping through the questions being asked by the counselor and then keeps on tinkering with the map of wherever I have gone, or think of going, in pursuit of finding drugs. This happens simultaneously. The only right thing is decided by the mind, by our thoughts, and I felt mine were mostly escaping me.”
“I remember the counselor telling me that I am repeating most of my answers. I felt like I have to defend myself every time I was in the session, something keeps pulling me. You definitely need a pull and not a push. It’s a very slow process…… the counselling,” Ahmed explains, his voice reducing to whispers as he lowers his gaze, and adds, “I hope I make more sense now. I have been trying to, I am told lately.”
Both Ahmed and Mushtaq have been talking to themselves lately; their parents complained, but the doctors have assured them that it is nothing to worry about and have asked them to also write, which might help them to let go of the emotional suppressions that they might be carrying in an attempt to create a channel.
When the choice came to admit their sons in the government rehabilitation, the two families were a bit skeptical. “One of the addicts had escaped the Centre and was then found dead in a public toilet. He had died due to an overdose,” explains Mushtaq’s mother, referring to an incident that took place back in 2019. Owing to their lack of trust in the government facility, the doctor suggested they keep them locked inside the house and ensure that all the protocols are followed, which involved taking medications on time and regular testing of urine sample.
Ever since, which is four months ago, Mushtaq and Ahmed have been locked in one room inside their respective houses.
Mushtaq looks outside the window of his room, which is both a prison and a refuge, and pointing out, he says, “you see those rice fields……. that’s where I grew up. We used to live together, with both uncles and my grandparents. A huge portion of the field there, right where you see an unfinished house in the making, was the place where we used to play. The land was big enough that during the time of early autumn, just a week before the harvest, we used to play hide and seek in the long, sharp and yellowish crop of rice fields, and it was pretty hard to seek anyone, and I nevertheless always loved to hide.”
He adds, “While the elders worked, I never helped anyone in the thrashing and winnowing or drying of the crop, or maybe I did. My mother says I used to help, but I know that is not considered any help. Papa will agree too.”
The Psychology of Healing
Mushtaq reveals that their (Mushtaq and Ahmed’s) drug addiction did not only create difficulties for their families, it also bred mistrust and animosity in both families, both blaming the ‘other’s companionship’ for their son’s condition. “It came down to exchange of abuses for months,” he tells and adds after a pause, “…. till they realised that they were merely articulating their frustration.”
His mother confirms it, explaining how the family’s helplessness transformed their anxiety into hatred. “He would disappear, and we would try to search for him for hours till midnight, often in vain. As soon as his phone went off, fear and horror engulfed us. Sometimes, he returned the next day. You can’t imagine what was going in our heads that time. It was easy to blame not our son but the company he was in.”
Four months ago, when they took their sons for rehabilitation, they set this animosity aside, and as Mushtaq’s mother says, “it has turned into a bond of resilience.”
Both the mothers still find it difficult to talk about what made their sons choose, what they describe as, “zahhar” (poison), while referring to Heroine.
Mushtaq’s mother, still unable to reconcile with what happened and why, says, “Bab te mouj asith ma aasi aisi keh khata gomut. Kuur cham na…, emis ous dohai aslas saeit, ais chi syatha yim doshwai taith, yim yith ti che... Toati chu insaan pani jayi sochaan ki shayad tog ne nyechu raschun,” (As parents we might have done something wrong. My daughter…, she always wanted to do everything rightly, we love both our children, however they are... But it still makes you doubt that perhaps maybe we lacked the right guidance for our son.)
A mix of sense of shame and remorse still overwhelms the family. “On our daughter’s Nikaah ceremony, we had to keep our son behind closed doors. Everybody knew, but nobody, no relative or our neighbour asked about him, everybody played along, she says, breaking into uncontrollable sobs, as her daughter helps her with a glass of water.
Through the warm steam rising from the tea his mother brought alongside a large piece of Routte, Mushtaq’s face appears hazy. Mushtaq had recently cleared hepatitis C after a strict three-month course, and visitors kept arriving outside with dry fruits and sweets. He didn't want to face them.
"My mother told them I recovered from a long illness and that I've got a job at a private company in Rangreth - which I have, and I join next month. My father went from pillar to post to get it for me. I'm very lucky."
Mushtaq and Ahmed both contracted severe hepatitis C from shared needles and lost two school friends to overdose-induced heart attacks. After months as prisoners of their own bodies, they've spent three months in rehabilitation — and now carry something they hadn't in years: hope. They are striving, striving to be free, striving to say "No". “This time and every time,” they say.
Research consistently points to why that "no" is so hard. Peer pressure, conflict, and unemployment are well-documented gateways; a 2022 IMHANS study by Dr Yasir Rather found peer pressure responsible for initiating drug use in 96% of cases. And the supply never dries up. Kashmir's proximity to the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran) keeps high-purity heroin widely available.
Twenty kilometers away, in a dense neighbourhood, Ahmed stands at his room's only window, taking deep breaths. "At least I have those friends to cling to - devils, I don't know where any of them are, but I pray for them. I cling to them because I have nothing else, only sounds that have settled in my heart, maybe in my soul. ‘I worry about my soul. I worry about every soul that ever held me, even for a minute, and begged me to do something good, to 'end up somewhere safe.' I hear them in my restless sleep….and I don't sleep much. I fear the nightmares. I know exactly how they'll make me feel, and I don't want to feel that."
Ahmed's cracked phone screen lit up, revealing a tiny face, closed eyes, tender skin, big red cheeks bundled in a woolen blanket. "My niece,” he says.
“She was born last month, and I only saw her through this screen. I wanted to hold her so badly. When I finally did, I cried, wondering if I deserved that warmth, if I had the love she needs. But maybe I did. My sister simply placed her in my arms, and I couldn't hold back anymore," Ahmed says with a mix of satisfaction and anxiety.
What Makes Tomorrow
It's a winter afternoon and Mushtaq is trying to reach Ahmed. "He won't pick up," he says, and tries again anyway.
"He has a phone, but it's not on a network. The last one he had, we traded it for ten grams of Heroin. Before that, I'd stolen money from my father's shop. He knew by the morning. He tried calling the police, but couldn't bring himself to, like all the times before. We tried everything - dark web, people who terrified us. We couldn't stop."
He pauses.
"Then it went quiet. My father locked me in my room. Meals came through the window grill. Ahmed and I had a chair commode for the first week. We were so ashamed. We were allowed the washroom, but the door had to stay open. I screamed. I said horrible things about my parents. I hate that memory," he says, and then looks up with half a smile.
"But it's fading now. That's a relief."
Outside, the winter sun sits low and pale over the valley. Mushtaq tries Ahmed's number one more time, to reach his friend. Just to talk. The past is behind them. That, perhaps, is where this begins.
(*The names have been changed to protect their identities)
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