Srinagar, April 25 -- ByMohammad Amin Mir

Jammu and Kashmir stands before a defining test. The region has spent decades battling discord, disturbance and distress. Another threat now presses into villages, schools and homes with alarming force: drug abuse.

This crisis reaches far beyond addiction. Families break under financial pressure. Young people drift away from education and work. Criminal networks tighten their grip on vulnerable communities.

Every district now tells stories of parents searching for treatment, teachers watching students decline and neighbourhoods losing promising youth to narcotics.

Against this difficult backdrop, a recent operation in Village Vessu in Qazigund gave something rare in public life: proof that det...