LAHORE – It was a hot evening of May in 2006 when the dead body of Muhammad Amir was recovered from a wheat field behind his high school in village 216/JB of Jhang where he studied till 10th grade.

He was one of the finest javelin throwers, a very good runner and well known Kabbadi player of the area. 20-year-old Amir had won dozens of prizes in inter high schools games of Faisalabad division. He started smoking tobacco but quickly shifted to smoking heroin. Later he started taking injections with Avil (Pheniramine maleate) combination just before joining college. All veins of his bodies had got damaged due to frequent use of needle. On the day of his death he found a lonely place to discover some new part of body to use the injection of drug. But he failed in the attempt to inject drug in his thigh and died on the spot. A fellow addict informed the villagers about his death.

It was just after four years of his death that his younger brother Baba also died of addiction at age of 22 in the same manner. Brother of Amir and Baba and son of Mumtaz Baloch, Khawar, recently came out of jail after five years of imprisonment in charges of heroin sale. He is also heroin addict. “It is tragedy that my three sons became addicts. Two of them die and the loss is irreparable,” laments the father Mumtaz.

This is not just the story of three brothers who became addict there are many others. The scribe came to know about Saeed Khan, who was considered the best player of tent pegging even at the age of 21. He was resident of village 217/Jb adjacent to 216/JB, which is notorious for heroin sale in whole district Jhang. Villagers witnessed his decline from a young energetic player to begging in buses to fulfil heroin addiction just in span of three years. He also died after four years of the use of injection.

Ghulam Gilani, Ansar, Ijaz, Amjad, Kaka, Altaf and dozens others of the same village destroyed their lives due to addiction and hundreds others in nearby villages like 215/JB, 218/JB, 451/JB Darogawala, 452/JB Aaheeran, 446/JB Bhojyan, 443/Jb etc are also using drugs and no one is there to stop this menace.

Heroin sale has become common in very sixth or seventh  village of Punjab and it is abundantly available in cities. One can visit the villages in surroundings of Toba Tek Sing, Gojra, Sumandri, Chechawatni, Mianchannu, Khanewal, Haronabad, Chistian, Bahawlnager, Minchanabad, Liaqatpur, Sadiqabad, DG Khan, Layyah, Bhakkar and towards north Sheikhpura, Gujranwala, Gujrat to find rampant drug peddling. And all this is happening under the umbrella of police, who get bribes from drug peddlers. Different drug combinations are easily available at medical stores.

According to government departments’ estimates, around seven million people in Pakistan are addict of different drugs but the NGOs say it is much higher.

“Nobody was even aware of this white/brown powder (heroin) when it was first introduced in 80s . I can remember it was era of General Ziaul Haq when heroin first arrived in our village. Two persons whom I don’t want to name first started smoking heroin. It was cheap then and one kg was available less than Rs10,000 but now its one gram is available at price of Rs 300 (Rs300,000 per kg). I am witness of seeing its addicts from 10 to 100 and then many hundreds alone in my village,” said Hasnat Ahmad, a school teacher and resident of village 216 who now shifted to Jhang just to save his kids from the bad environment.

“I am not sure my children will get education and remain safe from this curse if I had continued to live in my village. I saw destruction of wealthy families in few years,” said Hasnat. He started many anti-heroin sale campaigns with help of some other educated villagers but it was all in vain. 

Another villager Sarfraz Khan who is in his 60s said that he had seen destruction of a whole generation due to this addiction and now is the witness of the damage to another generation. 

World has marked International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking some days back. The blight of drug abuse in rural areas goes unnoticed by the Punjab government. High time we start taking of people living in rural areas as well.