Charikar druggies taken to rehab centre with limited capacity

CHARIKAR (Pajhwok): A drive to collect drug addicts from Charikar, the capital of central Parwan province, kicked off on Monday, officials said. The campaign will be extended to districts soon.

At the beginning of the campaign, 27 junkies were picked up from different parts of the city and taken to a 20-bed rehabilitation centre, Counter-Narcotics Director Abdul Munir Rahimi told Pajhwok Afghan News.

“Although poppy cultivation has been reduced to zero, there are still hundreds of druggies in the province. We have launched an identification and rehabilitation effort in the district centres,” he said.

There are nearly 100 addicts in the provincial capital, which has only one 20-bed rehabilitation centre in the city. Thus the addicts were hospitalised turn by turn, the director explained said.

Dr. Niamatullah Rashid of the centre said: “As many as 27 addicts have been brought to the hospital, which has no capacity to accommodate more than 20 people at a time. We have to treat the rest of seven at their homes.”

An addict, Ahmad Fawad, 32, said: “I have been consuming drugs over the past four years. I was feeling guilty, when admitted to the rehabilitation centre. However, now I am happy to have recovered.”

myn/mud