The drug menace is a bigger threat than militancy itself
In a region long defined by the weight of conflict, a quieter devastation has taken hold. Across Kashmir Valley, drug addiction has grown into what officials now describe as a pandemic — one filling hospitals, fracturing families, and pulling young men into detention centers faster than any institution can absorb them. The Director General of Police for Jammu and Kashmir has offered a sobering reckoning: this crisis, he says, poses a greater threat to the valley than militancy itself. It is a moment that asks Kashmir — and those who govern it — to look inward at a wound that has been spreading in the shadows of more visible struggles.
- A two-month investigation across Kashmir's addiction treatment centers has exposed a public health system at breaking point, with cases accumulating faster than hospitals, clinics, and detention centers can manage.
- Young men are cycling through detention facilities in growing numbers, their futures narrowing as addiction outpaces the valley's capacity to intervene or rehabilitate.
- Families across the region are being quietly hollowed out — bearing the financial cost of treatment, the grief of watching relatives struggle, and the silence that surrounds a crisis long kept at the margins of public discourse.
- The valley's top police official has issued an unambiguous warning: without urgent and comprehensive action, the consequences will be severe — a statement that carries extraordinary weight in a region where security threats have historically commanded all attention.
- The investigation maps the crisis across geography and institution, signaling that no single response will be sufficient — and that a fundamental shift in how Kashmir's leadership prioritizes public health is now unavoidable.
An investigation by The Indian Express, conducted over two months across addiction treatment centers from Baramulla to Anantnag, has brought into sharp focus what officials are now calling a pandemic. Drug addiction is overwhelming Kashmir's hospitals and clinics, filling detention centers with predominantly young men, and fracturing families across the valley — a crisis that has long existed beneath the surface of more politically visible concerns.
Journalists entered the spaces where the crisis lives: treatment facilities in Srinagar and Kupwara, conversations with doctors, psychiatrists, counselors, police officers, and the families watching their relatives disappear into addiction. What emerged was a portrait of a public health system stretched beyond its limits, with the human toll measured not only in hospital admissions but in criminal cases, quiet household desperation, and irreversible loss.
The gravity of the moment has reached the highest levels of law enforcement. Dilbag Singh, Director General of Police for Jammu and Kashmir, told the newspaper plainly: the drug menace now represents a threat larger than militancy. In a region where security concerns have long dominated every conversation, the statement lands with unusual force. His warning was explicit — without urgent, comprehensive action, deeper pain is coming.
What makes the crisis particularly striking is how long it remained invisible. Drug addiction has occupied far less space in Kashmir's political and media discourse than governance or security. Yet the investigation reveals it is reshaping the valley in real time — young people cycling through detention, families depleted by the cost of care, health workers managing caseloads that exceed all capacity. The investigation offers no easy answers, but its implication is clear: this is a problem that will not resolve through existing channels, and the moment for serious action is now.
Kashmir's drug crisis has moved beyond the margins of public conversation into something that can no longer be ignored. An investigation by The Indian Express, conducted over two months across addiction treatment centers from Baramulla in the north to Anantnag in the south, has documented the scale of what officials now describe as a pandemic—one that is overwhelming hospitals and clinics, filling detention centers with predominantly young men, and fracturing families across the valley.
The reporting took journalists into the spaces where the crisis lives: treatment facilities in Srinagar and Kupwara, conversations with doctors, psychiatrists, counselors, police officers, and the families watching their relatives struggle. What emerged was a picture of a public health system stretched to breaking point, with addiction cases piling up faster than the infrastructure can absorb them. The human toll is measured not just in hospital admissions but in the accumulation of criminal cases, in the quiet desperation of households, in the loss that addiction leaves behind.
The weight of the crisis has not gone unnoticed at the highest levels of law enforcement. Dilbag Singh, the Director General of Police for Jammu and Kashmir, offered a stark assessment in an interview with the newspaper: the drug menace, he said, represents a threat larger than militancy itself. It is a statement that carries particular resonance in a region where security concerns have long dominated the public conversation. Singh's warning was explicit—without urgent, comprehensive action, the consequences will be severe.
What makes this crisis distinct is not merely its scale but its invisibility until now. Drug addiction has traditionally occupied less space in Kashmir's political and media discourse than security issues or governance questions. Yet the investigation reveals it is reshaping the valley in real time: young people cycling through detention centers, families depleted by the cost of treatment, health workers managing caseloads that exceed capacity. The detention centers themselves have become repositories of youth caught in addiction, a symptom of both the crisis and the limited alternatives available to address it.
The investigation does not offer easy answers. It maps the problem across geography and institution—from the police perspective, the medical perspective, the family perspective—but the implication is clear: this is not a problem that will resolve through existing channels. It demands attention, resources, and a shift in how the valley's leadership prioritizes public health emergencies. As Singh's comments suggest, there is at least recognition at the top that the moment for action is now, before what he calls the deeper pain arrives.
Notable Quotes
The drug menace that society currently faces is a bigger threat than militancy, and a much bigger pain awaits us if we do not pay attention and go all out to face the drug challenge today.— Dilbag Singh, Director General of Police, Jammu and Kashmir
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say the drug crisis is bigger than militancy, what does that actually mean for a police officer in Kashmir?
It means the threat is no longer external or ideological—it's internal, it's in families, it's in the body of the society itself. Militancy you can fight with security operations. Addiction requires you to rebuild systems that may not exist yet.
Why did it take two months of investigation to surface something this large?
Because it wasn't being counted the same way. A militant attack is a headline. A young man in a detention center for drug possession is a statistic. Families don't report it. Hospitals absorb it quietly. It took journalists actually going to the places where it lives to see the pattern.
The article mentions young men specifically. Is this a gendered crisis?
The detention centers are filling with young men, yes. That's what the reporting shows. Whether that's because addiction affects men differently, or because enforcement targets men differently, or because families hide it differently for women—that's a question the investigation raises but doesn't fully answer.
What does a treatment center in Srinagar look like when it's overwhelmed?
Stretched. More people than beds. Doctors and counselors working beyond capacity. Families waiting. The infrastructure was never built for this volume. It's not a failure of individual effort—it's a failure of planning.
If the police chief is saying this is the priority, what happens next?
That's the open question. Recognition is the first step. But recognition without resources, without coordination between health and law enforcement, without addressing why young people are turning to drugs in the first place—that's just words. The investigation documents the crisis. What comes after is up to the people who have the power to act.