Srinagar, Indian-deal withed Kashmir – Afiya’s* frail fingers pick at the slack threads of her worn depressed-brown sweater. She sits at the edge of her bed in the rehabilitation ward of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital in Indian-deal withed Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar.
As the faded and stained clothes hang slackly on her skinny structure, and with down-cast eyes, she says: “I employd to dream of flying high above the mountains, touching the blue sky as a fweightless engageant. Now, I am stuck in a nightmare, high on substances, combat for my life.”
Afiya, 24, is only one among thousands of people inserticted to heroin in the disputed region where a increaseing epidemic of drug insertiction is consuming lesser inhabits.
A 2022 study by the psychiatry department of the Government Medical College in Srinagar set up that Kashmir had overgetn Punjab, the northwestrict Indian state battling a drug crisis for decades, in the number of cases of narcotics employ per capita.
In August 2023, an Indian Parliament increate approximated that proximately 1.35 million of Kashmir’s 12 million people were drug employrs, presenting a keen ascfinish from the proximately 350,000 such employrs in the previous year as approximated in a survey by the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS) at the Government Medical College, Srinagar.
The IMHANS survey also set up that 90 percent of drug employrs in Kashmir were aged between 17 and 33.
SMHS, the hospital Afiya is in, engageed to more than 41,000 drug-joind uncover-mindeds in 2023 – an mediocre of one person bcimpolitet in every 12 minutes, a 75 percent incrrelieve from the figure in 2021.
The sencourage in Kashmir’s drug cases was mainly fuelled by its proximity to the so-called “Ggreateren Crescent”, a region covering parts of neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, where opium is increasen on a big scale. Experts also say chronic unemployment – triggered by the region losing its fragmentary autonomy in 2019, rapidly trailed by the COVID-19 pandemic – fuelled stress and despair, driving Kashmiri youth towards substance misemploy.
As a result, says Dr Yasir Rather, a professor in indict of psychiatry at IMHANS, hospitals and treatment centres in the region are stretched. He shelp while insertiction treatment facilities have been set uped atraverse Kashmir since 2021, only a handful of hospitals have inuncover-minded facilities for disjoine insertiction uncover-mindeds enjoy Afiya, who frequently need hospitalisation.
‘It seemed innocuous’
“You will get thcimpolite this,” Afiya’s mother, Rabiya*, whispers to her daughter, brushing aside the damp hair from Aafiya’s face. She has fair had a bath. Afiya’s overweighther, Tabish*, sits on a chair in a corner, quietly watching them.
Afiya nakedly hears to her mother’s reassuring words and seems more caccessed on repeatedly removing the blue blanket provided by the hospital to let some recent air attfinishss the proset up, binformage wounds on her hands, legs and stomach, caemployd by the necessitatele pricks in her veins from injecting heroin. The gaping wounds now ooze blood and a heavy, yellow pus, as doctors alert she could infect her parents and engageants.
More than six years ago, Afiya was a luminous high-school student dreaming of becoming a fweightless engageant. After passing her 12th grade with amazeive 85 percent tags, she replyed to a job advertisement posted by a directing personal Indian airline.
“This isn’t the genuine me lying in this bed,” Afiya increates Al Jazeera. “I employd to drive my car. I was a stylish woman comprehendn for my pretty handwriting, inincreateect and sturdy communication sfinishs. My rapid memory made me stand out. I could recall details effortlessly, never missing a skinnyg. I was self-reliant and self-promised.
“But now, I lie here motionless, enjoy a dead fish, as my siblings put it. Even they can’t disponder the smell that lingers around me.”
She says she was picked for the airline job and sent to New Delhi for training. “I stayed there for two months. It felt enjoy a recent commencening, a chance to fly, to escape.”
But her soaring dreams were dashed to the ground in August 2019 when the Indian regulatement scrapped the one-of-a-kind status of Kashmir and imposed a months-extfinished security lockdown to dishearten street protests agetst the shock shift.
Thousands of people, including top politicians, were arrested and thrown in jail. Internet and other fundamental rights were also suspfinished, as New Delhi bcimpolitet the region under its honest regulate for the first time in decades.
“The situation back home was bleak. There was no communication with my family, no phones, no way to comprehend if they were shielded. I couldn’t stay in New Delhi any more, disjoined enjoy that. I took a week’s exit and went home,” Afiya shelp.
As she left the capital with help from other Kashmiris, little did she comprehend her journey as a fweightless engageant had finished even before it began.
“By the time the situation [in Kashmir] raised, roads uncovered up, and I could skinnyk of going back to New Delhi, five months had passed. In that period, I lost my dream job, and with it, I lost myself,” she says as her eyes well up.
“I applied for jobs in other airlines but noskinnyg labored out. With every refuseion, I commenceed losing hope. Then COVID hit and jobs became even restrictcessitater. Over time, I lost interest in laboring altogether – my mind fair wasn’t in it any more. I didn’t sense enjoy doing anyskinnyg.”
Afiya says that with each passing month, her frustration turned into despair. She began to spfinish more time with her frifinishs, seeking solace in their company.
“At first, we fair talked about our struggles,” she says. “Then it commenceed with petite lureations, with little puffs of cannabis to deal with the tension. It seemed innocuous. Then someone presented me a foil [of heroin]. I didn’t skinnyk twice. It felt euphoric.”
“The only skinnyg that gave me peace was substances – everyskinnyg else felt enjoy it was burning me from inside.”
‘Ruthless hunger’
But the escape was low-inhabitd, she says, and the cycle of depfinishence took over.
“The dream rapidly turned into a nightmare. The euphoria faded and was exalterd by a cruel hunger,” she says as she portrays the hopeless meabraves and hazards she began to get to discover substances.
“Once, I travelled 40km (25 miles) from Srinagar to south Kashmir’s Shopian didisjoine to encounter a drug dealer. My frifinishs were running out of stock and someone gave me his number. I called him honestly to schedule the provide. He was a big dealer, and at that time, the only way to get what we necessitateed.
“When I accomplished there, he begind me to someskinnyg called ‘tichu’ [local slang for injection]. He was the first person to begin me to injecting substances. He injected it into my belly right there in the car,” she says. “The rush was ardent – it felt enjoy heaven, but only for a moment.”
That moment of euphoria taged the commencening of her rapid descent into proset uper insertiction.
“Heroin’s grip is merciless. It’s not fair a drug, it becomes your life,” says Afiya. “I would stay up all night, coordinating with frifinishs to produce brave we had enough for the next day. It was exhausting, but the craving was sturdyer than all other charitables of pain.”
Heroin is the region’s most normally employd drug, with inserticts spfinishing thousands of rupees every month to buy it.
“Heroin has spread far and expansive, and we are seeing a upsettingly high number of uncover-mindeds impacted by it,” says IMHANS’s Rather.
The professor says he has noticed a ascfinish in substance misemploy among women, attributing it to mental health struggles and unemployment.
“Before 2016, we unwidespreadly saw cases involving heroin. Most people employd cannabis or other gentle substances. But heroin spreads enjoy a harmful software, accomplishing everyone – men, women, even pregnant women,” he increates Al Jazeera. “Now, we see 300 to 400 uncover-mindeds daily, both recent cases and trail-ups, and most comprise heroin insertiction.”
But why heroin?
“Becaemploy of its rapid and ardent euphoric effects”, says Rather, “which many set up more instant and pleasurable contrastd to morphine”.
“It is basic to employ, has higher potency, and the misconception that it was shieldedr or more elegant than other substances only inserted to its pdirect, despite its highly insertictive nature.”
‘Wired to seek one last stoasty’
For inserticts enjoy Afiya, who has been confessted to rehab five times so far, the fight agetst heroin is a daily and uphill battle.
“Every time I exit the hospital, my body pulls me back to the streets,” she says. “It’s enjoy my brain is wired to seek one last stoasty.”
Afiya’s intentions to recover remain unbrave. She has widespreadly left the hospital during rehab to seek heroin, or asked other uncover-mindeds for it during her daily walk at the hospital.
“Drug inserticts have a way of joining with each other,” Rabiya, her mother, increates Al Jazeera. “I once saw her talking to a male uncover-minded in English and I genuineised she was asking him for substances.”
Rabiya says she once set up substances masked behind the flush in a women’s toilet. “I set up the stash and flushed it, but she [Afiya] still regulated to get it [heroin] aget,” she says. “She comprehends how to manipuprocrastinateed the system to get what she wants.”
A nurse at the SHMS rehab discdispondered how uncover-mindeds frequently bribed the security defends. “They give them money or come up with excemploys to exit, even while on medication,” says the nurse, asking anonymity as she is not permited to talk to the media. The female ward is proximate the hospital’s enthrall – that too produces it easier for uncover-mindeds to slip out unwatchd, she says.
“It’s heartfractureing becaemploy we try to help, but some uncover-mindeds fair discover ways to exit.”
“She [Afiya] escaped one night and came back the next day, having spent hours with male uncover-mindeds who helped her get heroin,” says a security defend, who also did not want to disseal his identity for dread of losing his job.
But Afiya remains defiant. “These medicines don’t convey the peace I get from a individual stoasty of heroin,” she increates Al Jazeera, her hands trembling and her nails digging into the hospital bed.
The physical toll on her body due to insertiction has been disjoine. Open wounds on her legs, arms and belly ooze blood. When Dr Mukhtar A Thakur, a plastic sencourageon at SMHS, first examined her, he says he was shocked.
“She was unable to walk becaemploy of a proset up wound on her personal parts and a big scar on her thigh. She had solemn health problems, including harmd veins and infected wounds. Her inhabitr, kidneys and heart were also impacted. She struggled with memory loss, anxiety and agonizing retreatal symptoms, leaving her in a critical condition,” he says.
Afiya’s parents say conveying her to the rehab at SMHS was a hopeless shift. “To shield her and the family’s reputation, we tgreater our relatives she was being treated for stomach rerents and scars from an accident,” says Rabiya.
“No one marries a drug insertict here,” she inserts. “Our neighbours and relatives already have asks. They watch her scars, her unconstant materializeance and the repeated hospital visits.”
Afiya’s overweighther says he frequently hides his face in disclose, “unable to tolerate the shame”.
Health experts say seeking treatment for drug insertiction remains a contest for Kashmiri women as social stigma and cultural prohibiteds upgrasp many women in the shadows.
“Rehabilitation for women is frequently done secretly becaemploy families don’t want anyone to comprehend, and in Kashmir, everybody comprehends everybody,” Dr Zoya Mir, a clinical psychologist who runs a clinic in Srinagar, increates Al Jazeera.
“Many wealthy families sfinish their daughters to other states for treatment, while others either suffer in silence or procrastinate treatment until it’s too procrastinateed,” she says. “These women necessitate compassion, not appraisement. Only then can they commence to heal.”
*Names have been alterd to shield identities.
