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War against drugs: Elderly parents lose son, struggle to raise grandson in Punjab
Punjab is witness to a growing number drug overdose deaths in recent months with victims, from youngsters to police personnel, falling prey to easy availability of adulterated chitta (heroin). Hindustan Times brings out stories of families, comprising elderly parents, hapless widows and clueless children, in the hinterland left to fend for themselves as sole breadwinners lose everything to drug abuse.
They stare at a bleak future. The elderly parents, both labourers, who lost their son to drug overdose three months ago, look lost because they don’t know how to raise their 10-year-old grandson.
A 26-year-old daily wager, Sukhchain Singh of Bhana village in Faridkot district, died of drug overdose on November 12. Sukhchain’s mother Kirpal Kaur, 60, picks cow dung from houses of landlords in the village to earn just about enough to meet daily expenses and his father Najar Singh, 62, works as a daily wager in fields or at a brick-kiln. Barely a month before losing their son, their dilapidated house had collapsed. The villagers helped them with some money and they now live in two partially constructed rooms on a marla with no boundary wall.
Sukhchain had started taking drugs in 2019. “Initially, we didn’t know. His wife deserted him three years ago and left their son behind. Drugs are easily available in the nearby Chahal village. Sukhchain’s friends used to take him along to buy chitta just like they did on November 12. They brought him back unconscious. We rushed him to hospital, where he was declared brought dead,” Najar Singh says.
“We lost our son, his wife left us and now we’re looking after our grandson. We don’t know how long we’ll live and are worried about his future,” he says, holding the child’s hand.
Asked what he wanted to become when he grew up, the boy, who was in school uniform, immediately replied, “A doctor.”
