On a humid Thursday evening in August of 2021, a chance encounter in Goa’s buzzing Mapusa town set off a chain of events that led Shekhar (name changed to protect identity), 27, into getting lost in the labyrinth of drug addiction. The popular tourist destination unwittingly drew the multinational company employee from Hyderabad into its casual drug scene, and he eventually got hooked to ganja and LSD. Soon, he started peddling drugs among his friends in Hyderabad.
In February 2023, Cyberabad police caught Shekhar peddling contraband at KPHB Colony, a tiny locality in Hyderabad. As a practice, the police provided counselling and advised his family to send him to rehabilitation.
Shekhar is just one of the thousands of drug users/peddlers caught by the police in Hyderabad. Hyderabad’s Narcotics Enforcement Wing (H-NEW) alone booked 932 consumers in 86 cases in 2022 while seizing ₹2.3 crore worth of drugs.
