Some Children from SPYM’s Kingsway Camp Centre - Part 2

Please note that all names have been changed to protect identity.

ROCKY

Rocky, a 14-year-old from Alipur in Delhi, says he committed petty thefts to buy ganja, which he claims he smoked only occasionally. But it is clear that his drug dependence was large enough to make him take occasional risks.

He got caught one night while he was stealing petrol from a bike in his neighbourhood. He had stolen petrol thrice from the same area and got away with it. But this time the act was captured on a CCTV camera in the locality. “I begged them to take money from me pleading that a jail term would ruin my life. But I not only got locked up for the night but was also tortured,” he claims. “The cops heated a knife and placed it on the soles of my feet.”   

The next day they took him to Prayas. Rocky claims that he was able to smoke ganja on the sly after he befriended an inmate. If Rocky is to be believed this friend bribed the guard on sentry duty to smuggle in the drug. He says he was discovered smoking ganja 14 days before his release. As a result of this behaviour his probation was extended by 14 days.

Rocky also has had a troubled life at home. He says his father too smokes ganja and his mother, who runs a gas kiosk, gets terribly violent at times. He claims that last year she soaked a piece of cloth in kerosene, put it over the burner and pressed it against his throat. “To torture me she would also make me lie down and stand on my chest,” he says.

Another of Rocky’s laments is that he has made no friends at the centre. “I have also run out of clothes and when I asked some of the others to lend me theirs they just ignored me.”

KISHAN

This 16-year-old school dropout from Karol Bagh in New Delhi smoked ganja for a good two years. He funded his drug dependence by ferrying clothes made by his father, a tailor at Tank Road, to a shop in Palika market in Connaught Place which bought them. He made Rs 7,000 a month from these petty sales. To supplement his income Kishan, along with a friend, began snatching mobiles.

In June, sometime past midnight, they targeted a man in Rajouri Garden. When he resisted they beat him up and fled to their home in an auto.

Kishan keeps turning around to look at his heavily tattooed arms, as he tells us: “I was sleeping at home when the police came half-an-hour later. They held me firmly by my arms and led me to a Gypsy van, shoved me inside and with their batons hit me hard on the soles of my feet and on my waist. I was then taken to the police station from where I was brought here.”

Kishan has completed two months at the centre.

DILIP

This 16-year-old from Khoda in Noida, was dependent on inhalants for three years. He was in the fourth standard when he first inhaled a whitener during school hours, and tasted country liquor and ganja.

He would ask his father, who is a driver, to give him money on various pretexts. But it couldn’t have been easy because he has four more brothers.

His constant craving for these drugs led him to commit petty thefts. “I would always be on the lookout for money that might be lying around, and make away with enough to pay for the drugs, 500, even 1,000 rupees on good days,” he says.

But one day he fell short of money and went to meet a man who sold spurious liquor in Gurgaon. “From his warehouse we carried 80 crates which we sold near AIIMS, and I remember it was past midnight. I did this knowing that spurious liquor can kill and was paid Rs 200 for my part in it,” he says.

He has been at the centre before and was re-admitted following a relapse.   

Now he says he would like to become a volunteer at the centre.