By: Salman Nizami. Hamida first smoked opium to dull the nightmares after her husband's violent death. He was shot at his home in front of her at kakapura village in Anantnag district , leaving her a widow at the age of 25 with three young children and a joyless future to look forward to. "I don't know who fired the shot," she said. "But I couldn't stop playing back my memories of him bleeding to death in the yard and nobody to help." In the twilight half-life of an kashmiri widow there was little distraction until a neighbour introduced her to a brown paste. Soon she needed to smoke opium in the morning, at lunchtime and at night. "It gives me comfort and helps me forget my sorrows," she said. "It is a shameful thing. If my brother-in-law found out he would throw me out of his house." India is considered among the world's largest producers of legal opium for medicinal purposes and poppies are grown legally throughout the country,...
Rajouri Based Newspaper & ; News Agency Owned by Shafqat Wani