KOHAT: The local residents, including the civil society activists, have demanded punitive action against the drug dealers and peddlers to save the young generation from the menace.

They said the educational institutions were the places where drug peddlers thrived on.

Kohat district Khateeb Mufti Shafiullah while talking to Dawn said that the government should organise seminars and the police should launch crackdown to curb drug selling, especially among youth.

Kohat Qaumi Tehreek chief Ameer Khan Afridi said the drugs were available everywhere right from the city to towns and villages. He said the drug selling business was rampant in Togh Bala and Payaan, Jungle Khel and Garhi Jaat areas.

Some students of the Kohat University of Science and Technology told Dawn on condition of anonymity that there were many drug addict students staying in the hostels.

Haji Rasheed Paracha, former president of Kohat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expressed deep concern over the growing number of addicts and stressed the need for discouraging cultivation of hemp and opium in the tribal districts. He said drugs were eating the society like an ulcer. He said the government was not playing its role seriously to weed out the menace from the society.

The extent of the problem could be gauged from the fact that there was no room for the addicts at the rehabilitation centre being run by an NGO in the district. He said the NGO had been appealing to the government to provide land for construction of a new building to accommodate the drug addicts.

However, the NGO’s area manager, Waseem Ahmed, said at the moment they had 40 patients against the capacity of 80. He said the people did not bring patients to the centre due to high fee and stigma attached to drug addiction.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2020