Thirty-eight-year-old Kamran Ahmad (name changed) from Srinagar still gets goosebumps when he recalls the events that unfolded in the summer of 2022. A government employee, he had become a habitual user of heroin, he says, under peer influence. “I would take one to two grams of heroin per day,” recalls Ahmad.
To sustain the addiction, Ahmad sold his two cars and a shop, straining his relationship with his father, wife and child in the process. One day, his family decided to take him outside Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for rehabilitation, to avoid social stigma. A drug de-addiction centre based in Chandigarh charged the family around ₹10,000 to pick up a reluctant Ahmad from Srinagar. An ambulance arrived with bouncers.
“I would get beaten up quite often at the centre, where I was kept in a dormitory-type facility. I was warned against breaking rules, like making noise or laughing loudly. If anyone did any of these things, the bouncers would punch them in the face. I was given no medication,” Ahmad says. He had two stints of rehab outside J&K.
