Drug Addict’s Father Uses Son’s Shroud to Campaign Against Drugs

Drug-related deaths are not recognised and are usually brushed under the carpet.

A man in Punjab is on a mission to get the drug menace recognised and for it to be written as the cause of death on death certificates, reported the Times of India.

Mukhtiar Singh is staging a protest in Tarn Taran district in Punjab by writing slogans on the shroud that once covered his son.

He goes to the sub-divisional magistrates office every time there is a drug-related death. Currently, the certificate that is used to notify municipal councils about the death of a person lists beedi, hookah, alcohol and even pregnancy as possible causes of death, but not drugs.

Part of the reason that drug-related deaths are not recognised or are brushed under the carpet is because there is no record of them in the first place.

Mukhtiar started a campaign for the recognition of drug-related deaths after losing his 28-year-old son to addiction.

I had to forcefully write ‘heroin, smack injection’ separately in the application declaring my son’s death before the municipal council. Tell me which father will do this? They do not even want to accept that drugs led to my son’s death. But now my war has started and it will reach Delhi.

Mukhtiar Singh

The 47-year-old is using his sons shroud with slogans written on them to make people aware of the implications of long-term drug use.

Kafan bol paya, nasha bhajao, putt bachao (The shroud saya, rid us of drugs, save our sons).