Baramulla battles drug menace; 700 peddlers held in 5 years

Srinagar, Nov 3: Baramulla district has emerged as one of north Kashmir’s major drug trafficking hubs, with official data revealing that over 700 drug peddlers have been arrested in the past five years, and large quantities of narcotics, including charas, brown sugar, heroin, and poppy straw, have been seized during intensified police operations.

The figures, obtained through an RTI reply furnished by the office of the Assistant Superintendent of Police (Headquarters) Baramulla, show that from 2020 to October 2025, police registered 709 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

According to the data, 68 drug peddlers were arrested in 2020, 125 in 2021, 136 in 2022, 342 in 2023, and 169 in 2024 and 66 till October 2025, reflecting a sharp spike in arrests during 2022 when the district witnessed a surge in narcotics-related activity.

The police also arrested 183 drug addicts for possession or consumption during this period — 23 in 2020, 25 in 2021, 29 in 2022, 59 in 2023, 40 in 2024, and 17 so far in 2025.

The scale of narcotics recovered during anti-drug drives has been alarming. Between 2020 and 2025, Baramulla police seized over 25 kilograms of charas, 12 kilograms of heroin, nearly 390 kilograms of poppy straw, and more than 22 kilograms of brown sugar. Additionally, authorities confiscated thousands of drug tablets and bottles of codeine-based cough syrup used as synthetic intoxicants.

The RTI data also reveals that nine police personnel and eleven government employees were arrested in drug-related cases during this period, raising serious concerns about institutional complicity in the growing drug menace.

Police officials attribute the spike in drug trafficking to cross-border smuggling networks and local peddling chains that have penetrated rural as well as urban belts of Baramulla. “The district has been a focal point of our anti-narcotics strategy. We are working relentlessly to identify the supply routes and dismantle the local networks,” a senior police officer said.

Experts and social activists warn that the spread of drug addiction has turned into a grave social crisis, particularly affecting youth. They have called for a coordinated response involving community awareness, rehabilitation programmes, and strict enforcement to combat what many describe as Kashmir’s “silent epidemic.”