SHAKEELA ANDRABI
SRINAGAR: As violence due to terrorism is ending fast, the focus should now be shifted to crack a whip on drug mafia, while experts have called for stringent measures to keep a check on drug violence. To stop further menace of drugs growing exponentially and engulfing people of all age groups in Jammu and Kashmir, the law enforcing agencies and people working on drug de-addiction are taking strict measures to overcome the issue of drug menace. The gravity of the problem can be guessed by the fact that seven gruesome murders occurred within six months, three of them involving sons killing their mothers. These incidents have shaken the very essence of Kashmiri society and disturbed every thinking individual. Since then scores of drug abusers have been arrested in a Kashmir-wide crackdown against the substance abuse. This is for the first time in the history of Kashmir that such gruesome cases of violence have been reported and that too repeatedly. It is widely observed that the drug addiction has led to an increasing rate of crime in Kashmir. Besides, the very nature of drug addiction in Kashmir is also changing.
Officials said that in such a situation, the entire focus of the government has come to dealing with this menace of drug addiction and cracking a whip on the drug mafia. The experts have suggested several strict measures to overcome the issue of drug abuse and take steps for counseling the youth who have gotten involved in drug abuse.
The LG Administration has also launched the Nasha-Mukt Bharat Abhiyan – an initiative started by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on August 15, 2020, to eradicate the menace of drug addiction in 272 districts across India. “Large-scale awareness programmes have been held in schools, colleges, universities, and within the communities,” officials said. They further added that besides carrying a crackdown on the drug peddlers, they were carrying out regular awareness programmes about drug abuse. “We are concerned about these murders and its fallout more than anyone,” said a senior Police official. He said that they were putting in every effort to nip the evil of drug abuse in the bud. Police has been repeatedly urging people of Kashmir to come forward and support their campaigns to prevent destruction of youth through drugs.
In context of recent murders and other killings in Kashmir, Registrar Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS), Kashmir said that most of the violence in the world was because of ‘so-called sane people’. According to experts, the mental illnesses were predominantly associated with ‘self-harm’ rather than ‘harm to others’. “Homicides because of mental illness are rare and are not a prototype of mental illnesses,” they added.
