A senior JK Police officer lost his nephew to drugs. His words are a wake-up call for society

The nights got longer. The thoughts louder. So he found a way to silence them.

At first, it was just pills to sleep. Then pills to wake. Then pills to simply feel normal.

He never spoke much about it. That was his way—polite, reserved, always more willing to listen than to explain himself.

But over time, we noticed the signs: the withdrawal, the irritability, the unease in his body. We knew something was wrong.

I’m not just his uncle. I’m also a senior officer in the Jammu and Kashmir Police. I’ve worked on drug cases, seen the numbers, tracked arrests. I know what this looks like. And I knew we were losing him.

I tried to get him admitted to a de-addiction centre in Jammu. But the law required his consent, a signature on a form. He wouldn’t give it. He didn’t think he needed help. Maybe he was scared. Maybe ashamed. Maybe just exhausted.

A few days ago, he died of a massive heart attack. He was 25 years old.

We are still in shock. His parents haven’t recovered from the silence that now hangs in the house. There is no preparing for a young death. Especially one that feels like it could have been prevented.

He didn’t die because of one bad decision. He died because we all failed to guard a promising life like him.

We’ve normalised the presence of drugs in our markets, colleges and neighbourhoods. The pills are easier to get than therapy, support or structured help.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, and parts of North India, the drug crisis runs deeper than many want to admit. Drugs like Brown Sugar don’t come on their own. They cross borders with the help of facilitators operating in hinterlands.

These remote felons are the main enablers, though not the only ones. But their free-run ensures the poison keeps flowing.

We need to wake up to the reality that addiction is no longer a distant problem. It’s in havens, hostels, homes — even mine.

We like to think of addiction as a personal failure. But it isn’t. It’s a public failure. One that’s silently sustained by denial, apathy, and corruption.

Law enforcement arrests mostly addicts or small-time dealers. FIRs are filed. Cases registered. Houses sealed. But the big networks of the financiers, traffickers, and facilitators still have a field day.

These low-lives profit off broken lives.

We’ve begun calling it narco-terrorism. And there’s truth in that. Drugs fund violence. They destabilise communities. But on the ground, they’re doing something else too — consuming our young generation, slowly and silently.

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I’m not writing this because I’ve all the answers. I don’t. I’m just voicing anguish over our collective failure.

I was an uncle who tried, and failed, to save someone I loved. I believed I had the tools. But even I couldn’t save the precious life.

I’m speaking not as an officer, but as a grieving relative. Someone who doesn’t want this to be another headline, another death people scroll past.

Parents, please stop handing your children cash without purpose. Buy them what they need — books, clothes, fees — but don’t outsource your role to money.

Too often, money turns into pills. Then into something much worse.

And to my colleagues, politicians, civil society: we have to act beyond paperwork. This isn’t about optics. It’s about young people dying in their beds while we file reports and wait for the next case.

My nephew’s books are still open on his desk. He had underlined passages in constitutional law. He wanted to become a lawyer. He wanted to change things.

He won’t get the chance. But we still can.

If we don’t, this will keep happening — one young life at a time. Silently, then suddenly, and always too soon.

The author is a senior rank officer in the Jammu and Kashmir Police. His views reflect personal experience within a system confronting one of South Asia’s most urgent public health crises.