It’s 4 am. When the whole village was sleeping, three bouncers – all six feet tall – landed up at 18-year-old Kulvinder Singh’s doorstep. Kulvinder, a heroin addict, stayed in Khurshedpur village of Ludhiana district with his family. The bouncers hauled him up in a pick-up van and took him to a privately run de-addiction centre, 40 km away in Jalandhar.
They had charged Rs 5,000 for their services. Kulvinder’s father, Amreek (45), in a desperate bid, had secured the centre’s number and wanted his son to be weaned off ‘chitta’ (heroin).
Little did Amreek and his wife Chillabai (40) know that their son was in for brutal torture. Of the 132 de-addiction centres in Punjab, 72 are privately owned. And there is no proper regulation.
A few days later, Amreek and Chillabai started getting edgy. They went to meet their son, but were not allowed in. “We went four times, only to be shown on CCTV cameras that our son was ‘fine,'” said Chillabai. “I had talked to Kulvinder on phone once and he was crying. They were beating him inside. He kept pleading with me to take him out of that hell-hole.”
Families are desperate to de-addict their children and fall into the trap of private centres. “We approached the centre thinking they would free him of ‘chitta,’ but they tortured him further,” said Chillabai.
When Chillabai went to rescue him along with the sarpanch of the village, the centre owners demanded money. “We had to pay Rs 40,000 to release him. We sold off a part of our land, and also raised loans to treat him. We paid an additional sum for ‘medicines’ they asked us to give him at home,” she said.
Kulvinder breathed his last on January 17, 2015, two months after consuming the daily medicines. Sukhvinder (22), the elder brother of Kulvinder, thinks they were sleeping pills. “He kept taking pills for two months, and one day, he never woke up. He was so addicted to the pills that he would have convulsions if doesn’t take them,” he said. Doctors suspect he died of overdose, as such pills have to be always taken under supervision.
In a desperate plea for help, in October last year, 19-year-old Mohali resident Amit Jain (name changed) scribbled on a paper about at the Reality Foundation’s de-addiction centre in Kurali, Mohali. His statement became a written deposition, one of the many, submitted to the Punjab High Court in a sealed cover late last year.
A special team constituted by the court to inspect such centres has now submitted a confidential report about the horror stories such centres are. The court is yet to take cognisance of the report. Jain is one of the 102 addicts who have recorded written statements. In October last year, he wrote: “Those who have not seen hell can live here for two days. We eat roti with water. There is no proper food. Those who talk among each other are beaten up through the day.
“It has been three months since I am trapped here. This is a gang. If they get to know we have complained, they will not let us live. They will not let us die. They make us clean toilets. Even when one is feverish, one has to cook for oneself. There is no doctor here. I have seen an inmate struggling for help, running a temperature of 105 degrees.”
When this de-addiction centre was raided by the special team in October last year, up to 153 inmates were rescued, over 70 of whom were hidden in the basement, said a source in the Punjab government. “It had permission to keep only 15 inmates. Every inmate was charged up to Rs 20,000, and those who ran the centre made over Rs 30 lakh every month. Up to Rs 8 lakh are passed down as ‘cuts’ to government officials,” the source said.
Addicts from other parts of the country are also here. “In other states, there is no system of ‘pick-up’. They take separate charges for their services and transportation,” he said.
Another Kurali inmate wrote: “I was brought here on August 6 last year at night in a pick-up van. I was tied and beaten up. I was stripped and slammed naked against the wall. We were forced to bath naked in front of everyone.”
After the HC order, the special team raided eight centres in Pathankot, Mohali and Ludhiana. “Violations were reported from all centres. However, only the Kurali centre was sealed and an FIR was lodged. Other centres continue to run unabated,” he said.
“Ownership patterns suggest that such centres are run by former addicts. Also, former government employees are involved. One of them is run by an ex-bureaucrat from the department of excise and taxation. His daughter is a sub-divisional magistrate in one district,” he said.
Punjab’s health secretary Vini Mahajan, despite repeated attempts, refused to comment.
PUNJAB OPIOD DEPENDENCE SURVEY
- It was carried out by the state government in 2016
- There are an estimated 2.3 lakh drug users in the state
- Of the 80 de-addiction centres surveyed, only 35 had proper treatment facilities
- 80 per cent addicts tried to leave drugs at some point
- Only 8 per cent received medical help in 2015
- Drugs worth Rs 20 crore are consumed daily
Source: dnaindia.com