Drug addicts smear Canal Road’s picturesque view

Punjab police fail to deter delinquents from gathering in underpasses

LAHORE: The picturesque Canal Road is losing attraction for citizens due to the host of addicts who throng the venue to satiate their drug impulse.

There was a time when residents of the provincial capital, along with their families, would get together at the canal for picnic and the authorities would maintain cleanliness by regularly collecting wrappers and leftovers.

Now, as the department concerned has gone into an indefinite slumber, one finds used syringes, empty cigarette packs and butts at the site.

The Forman Christian (FC) College, Jail Road, The Mall and Dharampura underpasses became spots where drug addicts, gathered, but they would run away as police reached the area to chase them off.

Police officials made all out efforts to restrain the drug users from visiting the canal, sometimes giving them minor punishments, thrashing them with clubs or deflating the tyres of their motorcycles, but all in vain.

Two categories of drug users are found at various spots along the canal, those who beg at traffic signals and others who work at different places and come here for drug consumption.

Riaz, apparently a drug user, claimed that he was not among the addicts who lived in the area. “I just came here to enjoy the view of the canal.”

When asked why he was carrying several injections, he responded that it was not a drug but their food that kept him alive. Amanat Ali, another drug user, complained over being stigmatised. “We are common people and the society needs to understand how and why people start using drugs,” he lamented.

Razia Bibi said she was a beggar and not a drug user. When asked whether she was smoking a cigarette filled with hashish, she responded that only a person who consumed the drug could identify others doing so.

On Friday, the Main Market police conducted a raid at FC College underpass, but the drug users managed to escape. One man was unable to walk but his companions did not leave him behind. They carried him away from the scene in a shawl.

The officials deflated tyres of motorcycles parked around the place to prevent the suspects from escaping. They also took one of the motorbikes to the police station.

Police officials said it was only the drug users against whom they could do nothing. An official suggested that the police should use force to disperse the addicts, claiming that there was no way to stop them from gathering at the venue.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2020.