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Images News Network
Srinagar, July 29: A narcotic dimension to violent street protests in Kashmir valley has come to light with local youths being lured by anti-national elements with Afghan heroin and steroids to take to stone pelting against security forces.
The drug factor behind the current unrest in the state came to the fore during the interrogation of some local youths arrested by the state police, official sources said today.
The sources said the arrested youths confessed to addiction to drugs which was provided to them by a local supplier in return for their participation in stone pelting and violent protests.
After getting this information, Police immediately swooped down on some of the localities but could manage to pick up only one peddler Shezad from Khanyar in the downtown area.
Police claimed that during interrogation Shazad told them he was getting heroin from a resident of Natipora, in the outskirts of the city, which he used to distribute among groups of youths in downtown areas.
Some other steroids and drugs used to be also given to the youth besides cigarettes loaded with charas, a senior police officer claimed.
The downtown area is also home to a large number of people who were terrorists before and now jobless after serving their sentences. These youths become easily vulnerable to drug abuse encouraged by anti-national elements including separatist organisations, police said.
In one of the raids, police seized hundreds of disposable syringes and vials of heroins, steroids and analgesic injections.
The police has been told by the arrested youths that there was a well-knit network by which drugs found its way to people in various areas in the Kashmir valley.
The drugs were provided free of cost and in return they were asked to indulge in stone pelting on security forces, the sources said.