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ByThe terrorists travelled the same routes that drugs do. But addiction has made far deeper inroads and claimed many more lives in Punjab.A fortnight after Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists attacked the Pathankot airbase, border areas in the district remain anxious. Media hordes have stirred sleepy villages but there is more to the anxiety — a few terrorists are still believed to be hiding here. In nooks and crannies, soldiers lie in wait. Every day people claim to have seen them. A man saw them coming out of a sugarcane field. Another saw them hidden in tall grass. They are nowhere, and yet they could be anywhere. Much like drugs in Punjab.A young man in a de-addiction centre in Amritsar says that if you take him to any village in the border areas, he could fetch you a drug of choice in just half an hour. He possibly needn’t travel that far though. In Punjab, drugs are closer than you think. They’re popular in the rehri markets of Chandigarh these days—the man sitting on the next table might have ordered this delicacy if you haven’t. An observation by a bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday brought this trend to public attention. When something finds its way into paranthas, you can safely assume it has become a welcome part of Punjabi life.Jaish fighters are said to have come down a channel that drug smuggling has made quick and easy — the riverine stretch formed by the Tarna, Ujj and Jalali rivulets near Pathankot’s Bamial village. Terrorist infiltration from this route has highlighted a problem bigger than Pak-sponsored terror — the pervasiveness of drugs in a society traditionally known for its healthy lifestyle and hard work.Blaming Pakistan often diverts attention from our own failure to prevent drug trade in Punjab, especially the politician-smuggler nexus. Shashi Kant, former Punjab Director General of Police, had prepared a list in 2007 which named both prominent drug smugglers and their political patrons. Without this nexus, it is clear, the drug trade could not have turned into the large business it is today. Decades ago, when there was no politician-smuggler nexus in Punjab to facilitate smuggling, the means were primitive. Trained donkeys were popular couriers who would trot off to the Pakistani side and return carrying the goods.Manjit Singh, a local textile trader, says, “On massiya (dark moon) nights, smugglers from the other side sent drugs in small hotair balloons which were downed with slingshots after they entered the Indian side. Then came trained pigeons which carried messages and sometimes small quantities of drugs.”Punjab was effectively awash with smuggled drugs only when donkeys and pigeons were replaced by an elaborate, well-oiled network of smugglers, politicians, dealers, couriers and addicts. According to Kant, the Pathankot attack leaves no doubt that drugs and terror are but a single business. “But the most disturbing part is that the politicians have become active accomplices in the global narco-terrorism network,” he says.In Punjab, a large number of people commonly assume that the said politicians belong to the ruling Akali Dal-BJP combine. Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia has been questioned by the Enforcement Directorate for his alleged role in an infamous synthetic drugs case. Majithia’s sister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Union Cabinet Minister of Food Processing, is married to Akali leader and Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. On Tuesday, Majithia filed a case of criminal defamation against Sanjay Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party, who had accused him of patronising the drug mafia. Sukhbir Singh Badal has publicly mocked AAP, alleging that the party’s leadership included drug addicts. Former Congress CM Capt Amarinder Singh has promised to put an end to the drug trade in just four weeks. But will Punjab be drug-free if the Akali-BJP combine loses power in next year’s Assembly elections? Kant here iterates that his list included politicians from several parties.The concern of Pakistan sending drugs across the border is a red herring of sorts. The exaggerated emphasis on supply only helps obscure a large demand. Pakistan, after all, can smuggle in only the goods that are desired here. Before drugs, smuggled goods were as innocuous as textile. “After Partition, the most wanted Pakistani good in Punjab was ‘Doh Ghoda Boski’. This brand of cotton was smooth as silk and free of wrinkles. It got its name from the trademark two horses printed on the cloth,” says Manjit Singh. Doh Ghoda Boski was followed by opium, gold and fake currency.A green revolution having not gone exactly according to plan, a crumbling state economy and rising unemployment, and traditional acceptance of opium and marijuana created a particularly high demand for heroin and synthetic drugs.Vishal Bambah, a counsellor at The Hermitage, a rehab facility in Amritsar, says drug trade has become such a big business that it has now gained its own economic momentum. “When an addict has no money to buy heroin, the dealer offers him a deal — sell a certain number of packets and get your own fix for free. This creates a widespread network of couriers who could be a hundred times more committed than your regular sales executives,” Bambah says. A former addict, who does not wish to be named, reveals he had known a courier in Amritsar who had clocked 5,000 kilometres on his Pulsar motorcycle in just six months.A local police official says that in a climate when all other businesses seem to be down, it is the commerce of drugs that is perpetually on the up. “If one kilogram of grade-four heroin is worth Rs 50,000 in Afghanistan, it increases to Rs 5 lakh once it crosses the fence at the Indo-Pak border. The rate shoots up as the risk rises. In a border village, it is Rs 10 lakh. Once inside Amritsar city, the rate goes up to Rs 50 lakh. It’s Rs 1 crore when it reaches Mumbai. When smuggled into Western countries, the rate rises to Rs 5 crore,” he says. One can only imagine the profit a dare-devil courier can make if he manages to run the drug from the other side of a border fence, right into the city of Amritsar. “A big allurement is that the addict couriers can lift the ‘maal’ without paying any advance,” he says. This model, somewhat akin to multi-level marketing scams, has turned drugs into a roaring business that provides livelihood — and the daily fix — to a large number of people across the state.Amritsar’s Anngarh isn’t called ‘nasha mandi’ without reason. Much like a sabzi mandi, dealers here used to openly hawk ‘pudis’ (small pouches of drugs). ASI Gurjit Singh, in charge of the area post that was set up last year, does, however, believe that the drug trade is now under control. He has also received a certificate of appreciation for his efforts. “You search the internet and see. Modhe naal modha wajda si itthe (Dealers would operate here in milling crowds),” he says. Every other person here, he adds, was a suspect. “Once I caught a very old woman, an amritdhari (baptised Sikh) selling drugs. I told her, ‘Bibi jaan taan drugs chhadd de, jaan eh gaatra laah de’ (Either give up the drugs or take off the gaatra (a Sikh religious symbol),” he says.Maqboolpura in Amritsar has been a customary stopover for journalists on the hunt for a drugs story and celebrity activists who seek to make a difference. More than a decade ago, dozens of young drug addicts had died here. So it came to be known as the ‘mohalla of drug widows’. Now this common descriptor is regarded as a slur by the locals because the situation has improved. A local youth, whose father had died of drugs, says the media keeps maligning the locality even though that drugs phase is over. A second year BA student, he asks, “Should I become an IAS officer or a journalist?” There is no irony in his question. He is awed by the power of media to create impressions and set agendas. Another local youth says the ‘nasha’ has spread to the whole state and to all kinds of people, but only poor localities are branded the ‘dens of drugs’. “Have you seen those speeding Audis? Why do they drive like that? It’s not difficult to figure out,” he says.Since drug addiction is profitable, the business of de-addiction can mean good money. A number of de-addiction and rehabilitation centres have surfaced across the state. Terrified parents are sending their children here in droves. The clinics and centres can charge a monthly fee in the rather flexible range of Rs 5,000-Rs 50,000. But without enough trained professionals and an infrastructure that is adequate, these centres are comparable to prisons, where punishment rather than counsel is the method used for transformation. Traditionally, those who abuse drugs in villages are called ‘vailis’ (rogues) and it is presumed that they can only be corrected by a sound thrashing. This folk wisdom, which considers addiction a ‘vail’ (depravity) rather than psychological insufficiency, appears to be the guiding philosophy of such centres.Twenty-five-year-old Simarpreet, a former addict at The Hermitage rehab, visibly one of the more humane institutions, recalls how he was beaten up at a centre where his parents had earlier admitted him. “I was so angry. I decided I would again start taking heroin from the very day I would be let off,” he says. He has heard of another centre where addicts are put through novel punitive routines. “They mix several kinds of dal (pulses) in a bucket and they ask addicts to separate the grains. This process sometimes lasts an entire night. Addicts are made to empty a bucket of water with a spoon. Another addict holds a stick and monitors this punishment. If the suffering addict stops, that stick is used to beat him. If the monitoring addict fails to use a stick, the bouncer standing there beats him in turn.”Bambah, counsellor at The Hermitage, says addicts often escape from such centres. “Once an addict who came to our rehab described how he had escaped from such a centre. The first time his parents came to meet him, he snatched the car key from his father, bolted out and drove away,” he says. But that did not end his woes. When his parents returned home and found him there, they called the bouncers from the same centre who swooped down on him in the dead of night and took him back.Psychiatrist Dr JPS Bhatia runs Bhatia Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital and De-Addiction Centre in Amritsar, one of the more professional deaddiction centres in the state. He also manages The Hermitage. He says he tries to convince addicts and their families that addiction is not a “bad habit” but a “disease” that is curable. “I had warned of a looming epidemic in several newspaper articles I had written in the early 2000s. That was when heroin and synthetic drugs had started coming into the state. Traditional opium and alcohol addiction did not do as much psychological damage. Heroin and synthetic drugs are a lot worse,” he says. Dr Bhatia, in those years, went to work in a New York hospital to get better insight into heroin addiction.Every day, he gathers addicts and their families in his hospital for lectures that explain addiction scientifically but in a popular idiom. He begins with Shiv Kumar Batalvi, the most famous Punjabi poet of the 20th century whose poems were marinated in alcohol. “Don’t think addiction can turn you into a poet,” he says, as he draws the human brain on a blackboard to explain the psychology of addiction. His associate Amandeep Singh has a more folksy way of deglamourising ‘nasha’ (intoxication). “Once the MC at a wedding function where expensive liquor was flowing freely was speaking out from the stage, ‘Ennjoy, Enn-joy’. A sozzled guest got up and said, ‘Listen, it’s not en-joy. It’s in-joy.’ The MC retorted, ‘Bhaaji, when you are drunk, it’s ennjoy. Down a few more and see how you say it.’” After the joke, Amandeep cleverly makes his point. “Now all the bibis (women) present here must realise that drinking is no enjoyment. You must resolve today not to serve liquor at the weddings of your children.”In July 2014, the Chandigarh Zonal Unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau destroyed 351 kg of heroin, whose value is said to have been calculated in crores;Packs of heroin are prepared for incineration;A student prepares a poster at Chandigarh’s Government College during a seminar on de-addiction;The Jalali rivulet, near Bamial in the Pathankot district, less than a kilometre from the international border separating, is one of the many tributaries of the Ravi river that flow into Pakistan. This riverine lanscape can’t be fenced and it thus provides a good cover to infiltrators and smugglers who cross over;A special police post was set up at Anngarh in Amritsar last year when the locality turned into a ‘mandi of nasha’;The Hermitage in Amritsar is one of the few professionally run rehabs in the state