Kashmir’s War, on Drugs
Thousands of young, Muslim men have turned to opiates to dull the trauma of a childhood marked by violence and death.

BY MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN-APRIL 24, 2015

SrINAGAR, India — A.N. was waiting for the school bus to take him home one day in 2005 when four masked men carrying AK-47s sprinted out from a white coupe and unloaded a storm of bullets. They tore apart a man, dropping him flat onto his back in front of a nearby pharmacy. A.N. remembers the blood spilling out of the victim’s torso onto the ground behind the bus stop. He remembers listening to the sound of the getaway car screeching away as onlookers from a market started to gather. And he remembers going home that night and crying to his father, harboring a sense of panic so intense that he felt feverish.

Kashmir’s War, On Drugs by Thavam Ratna