Anantnag: The Ranibagh Garden here in main town Anantnag has become a safe haven for drug addicts and peddlers, with residents lamenting that the administration is doing nothing to curb the menace.
The blatant use, abuse, and sale of drugs in the middle of the town goes unchecked even as the administration is busy organising programmes and rallies of its “Nasha Mukt Bharat” (Drug-Free India) campaign.
The month-long campaign has been initiated by the central government and is being adhered to by the local administration in Kashmir with much pomp and show. Apart from rallies by school children, programmes attended by administrative officials are being conducted.
“Money is being spent on advertisements, on big billboards erected in many major towns of Kashmir. But the steps that carry actual imoact are missing. No one is even looking that way,” a source in Anantnag district administration told Kashmir Reader.
The Ranibagh Garden in Mattan Chowk area was developed a decade-and-a-half back, during the People’s Democratic Party-Congress coalition government, after a girls’ higher secondary school was shifted from the location.
“Not many people visited the garden in the initial years. But for more than five years now, many had started visiting the garden for morning and evening strolls, given the huge dimensions of it,” a resident told Kashmir Reader.
Recently, however, drug addicts from across the town have started thronging this garden, right under the nose of the authorities. “You can always see someone or other getting high in the garden. Evenings are particularly worse,” the residents say.
They told Kashmir Reader that drug-peddlers have also turned their attention towards the garden and are openly selling narcotic substances to youngsters, who have fallen into the addiction trap.
“They get abusive after they get high, often yelling and screaming in foul language. And if anyone objects, they abuse them, too. Living in this area has become a daily harassment,” the locals said.
The residents said they have time and again reached out to the authorities and asked them to curb this menace, but to no avail.
“They are just watching our younger generations getting consumed by drugs. Yes, they cannot make them give up drugs, but they can at least bar such spaces and prevent many others from falling into the trap,” the residents said.
This reporter tried talking to the Deputy Commissioner Anantnag and the SSP Anantnag, but none of them attended the phone calls.
A senior police officer from the area told Kashmir Reader that whatever the people were complaining of was true. “We send teams twice or even thrice a day to the park. They frisk the youngsters sitting there,” the officer said.
He, however, said that people also need to help police in identifying these culprits. “Even if a single one of them is identified, we will catch the whole chain. But people tend to shun their share of the responsibility,” he said.
Besides, the officer said, a broken wall at the back of the garden gives the addicts and peddlers a chance to flee soon as they see anyone approaching. “We put a wire on that wall but it is cut down frequently,” he said.

Suhail A Shah