InDepth | How Drugs Are Consuming Haryana, One District At A Time

On November 1, 2025, the residents of Ganga, a village 26 km from Mandi Dabwali in Sirsa district bordering Rajasthan and Punjab, did not celebrate Haryana Day. Instead of celebrating, the villagers gathered to mourn eight young people who had died of suspected drug overdoses in just two months. Over the past five years, about 50 people have lost their lives.

The village, which has about 11,000 inhabitants, observed this day as a ‘black day’ to express anguish, outrage and collective grief and to draw the state government’s attention to save its youth from the rapidly-spreading drug menace, which is said to be allegedly a direct spillover of the narcotics smuggling and substance abuse prevalent in neighbouring Punjab and Rajasthan.

“The state is the home to the sacred land of Kurukshetra, where the epic war of the Mahabharata was fought, and is now fighting a grim battle against the drug menace,” admits Sampuran Singh, a former Haryana students’ leader and now a social activist.

He also shares his anguish about the young village population in the districts sharing borders with Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, which are the worst hit by this epidemic. The recent drug overdose deaths, including those of sportspersons of national and international ranking, reflect the grim future that Haryana faces.

With scores of young lives lost over the years, Sirsa has emerged as one of Haryana’s worst-hit districts in the battle against narcotics, instances of drug abuse and frequent overdose deaths. Low literacy, unemployment, licensed opium cultivation in neighbouring Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and the spillover of cross-border drug and arms smuggling from Pakistan and Afghanistan have together created a fertile ground for the narcotics trade to flourish in Haryana’s border districts.

Addiction and death

There are primarily two types of drugs being trafficked into Haryana. First, chitta—deadly adulterated heroin smuggled from Punjab by a syndicate of peddlers, and second, opium grown in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The districts of Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Kaithal, Jind, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak, Sonipat and Yamunanagar have become hotspots for drug peddling and consumption. Sirsa, by all means, tops the number of drug overdose deaths. The families in these rural districts are particularly worried about a generation trapped between addiction and death.

In Santa Wali village in Sirsa, Anuj and Rajinder, both in their 20s, died within 24 hours on August 21-22, 2025, while in Nahrana village—which was declared a drug-free village by the local panchayat—multiple overdose deaths compelled Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini to order a complete review of 173 so-called drug-free villages in the state. “In many overdose deaths, the police found syringes near the victims’ bodies, indicating that the drugs had been administered intravenously. We report 2-3 deaths from villages in Sirsa almost every week. The source of drugs in a majority of the cases is Rajasthan and Punjab,” says Mahesh Sharma, a Sirsa-based media professional.

Deepak Saharan, superintendent of police, Sirsa, admits that the district remains vulnerable to cross-border trafficking from Punjab and Rajasthan. But, of late, the police have noted a new trend among the youth. They are moving away from chitta to other dangerous forms of pharmaceutical drugs like tramadol, methadone and buprenorphine naloxone. There are two reasons for this. One, these are not covered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, (NDPS) Act. So, though the police cannot take action, the state drug controller has authority to check and stop its proliferation or illegal sale. These are also cheaper options and are easily accessible from chemists. This is a matter of concern.

“We have written to the government seeking stricter enforcement and bringing the drugs under the NDPS Act. Many addicts inject these drugs, often reusing syringes, which puts them at a high risk of HIV, hepatitis B and C, and other life-threatening infections,” says Saharan.

But the tragedies are not confined to villages alone. The drug menace has spread to towns and cities, including areas close to the National Capital Region. Pubs, nightclubs and private parties have increasingly emerged as venues where young people are exposed to narcotics, reflecting the changing face of drug abuse beyond traditional trafficking networks. Most drug addicts are in the age bracket of 18 to 25 years.

Interstate Peddlers

Sunil Kumar, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau (HSNCB), says that Haryana has become both a transit state as well as a consumption market for interstate peddlers. “Our proximity to six states—Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand—makes Haryana particularly vulnerable to drug trafficking. Even as the HSNCB and other state and central enforcement agencies are working in close coordination to block supply chains, the interstate syndicates constantly evolve new ways and remain ahead of efforts to trap them,” he says. The peddlers use mobile apps and social media to meet the demand of addicts and to expand business to those areas that are still untouched by drug addiction.

While data on cases registered under the NDPS for 2026 is not available, but during 2025, the HSNCB registered 3,738 FIRs and arrested 6,801 persons during this period. In the same year, the police arrested 586 interstate and international traffickers, of whom 33 were foreign nationals. And more than 1,220 persons were arrested by the police for trafficking a commercial quantity of drugs in 2025. “We also seized a consignment that was trafficked from the Northeast and Bihar,” says an HSNCB official. “Another consignment that was intercepted this year was bound for Jodhpur from Siliguri, West Bengal,” he says.

Kumar claims that drug abuse in Haryana is not merely a law and order problem, but a social challenge, which the government is trying to meet through public awareness and community action. The government has formed district, block and village-level task forces to strengthen awareness, prevention and reporting of drug trafficking and addiction.

In Jind, a group of village vigilantes has taken up the fight against drugs. “Vigilante groups across the state are naming and shaming users and peddlers, but caste plays a part too. The khap system, a powerful traditional socio-cultural institution, has also started a drive to identify addicts and peddlers, who are asked to take a public vow to stay away from drugs and help addicts to give up all forms of substance abuse.

But dealing with the urban elite and high-profile youth in places like Guru­gram, Faridabad, Yamunanagar, Karnal and Ambala remains a challenge. The drugs reach them conveniently through powerful syndicates. One of the controversial drug abuse cases of Haryana rela­tes to Ajay Nandal, 30, a national-level wrestler, hailing from Rohtak. He was married to Pooja Sihag, a bronze medal winner of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Nandal died under mysterious circumstances in Rohtak in August 2022. His father had accused one of Nandal’s friends of being responsible for the ‘overdose’ death of his son. Though Haryana is known for producing outstanding sportspersons, women athletes and wrestlers who have represented India at national and international competitions, some of them too have been lured into drug abuse. Increasingly, young lives and promising careers are being threatened by addiction.

Ashwani Sharma is a journalist based out of Shimla