A twelve-year-old child addicted to heroin has been admitted to the Red Cross Drug Addiction Centre here in Gurdaspur. The child belonging to village Damtal falling under tehsil Indora Distt Kangra has been identified as Rithik.
He has told his parents about his addiction and wanted to live a normal life. His family is by his side and brought him to the drug de-addiction center. His father Sukhdev Singh is a labourer.
While talking to The Pioneer, Rithik said that he was studying in 9th class when he tasted heroin for the first time. Narrating his woes he said two years back his maternal uncle and a woman of his colony had ran away due to love affair. He claimed that family members of woman revenged with him. Brother of the lady befriended with him and lured him to join company of a group of youngsters, using heroin.
He said that the members of group used to supply him drugs for about six months and then started demanding money. He said that he had stolen hard earned money of his parents.
But when their parents came to know he admitted his fault, they wanted to bring back the child from the world of drugs. Parents of Rithik bought laptop, scooty and mobile but all in vain because Rithik was not able to come out of drug addiction. According to Rithik he was consuming heroine worth `500 daily by stealing money. Then his parents admitted him to Red Cross de addiction center Gurdaspur.
After spending two days in the rehab the boy said that he would now focus on studies, he lives with his grand parents at Taragarh and wants to become a police officer.
Rithik revealed that that he had also seen a nine year old child who was addicted to heroine. He said that the supply of Heroine came from Badroha where all kinds of drugs are sold freely.
Project Director Ramesh Mahajan said that Rithik is not a first child who is addicted to such a dangerous drug Heroine. Some other children like Rithik who were rehabiliated here are living a normal life.