KHYBER: With gradual establishment of more than a dozen eateries at Wazir Dhand Market of Jamrud, the tempting aroma of barbeque has replaced the toxic smoke of hashish while the sale of heroin, ecstasy pills and ice-meth has been considerably declined due to effective policing of the erstwhile drug market.

Wazir Dhand Market was notorious for sale and purchase of different types of illicit drugs and addicts from different parts of the country used to throng it to get a ‘token’ for their desired drug in the recent past.

Sources told this scribe that drug dealers would issue an average of 3,000 tokens on daily basis to cater to the growing demand of heroin, charas, ice-meth and ecstasy pills, with the later most in demand among youth, particularly students, both boys and girls.

They said that business of restaurants flourished as local police intensified anti-narcotics campaign in recent months and almost all known drug dealers, mostly Afghan nationals, fled the market, leaving the space open for different types of mutton-related dishes to lure food lovers.

Said Rehman, a local, told Dawn that though the narcotics business nearly diminished from Wazir Dhand and surrounding localities, yet its handling in the past bore resemblance with the functioning of the newly-established restaurants, as token for drugs was replaced by a token for customer’s favourite dish like Pattay Danay, barbeque, mutton Karahi or mutton roast to avoid long wait at those eateries.

Asmatullah, owner of a restaurant, said that the number of meat lovers almost multiplied after an effective crackdown on drug dealers in Wazir Dhand and other parts of Khyber tribal district.

He said that prior to launch of the crackdown, most of the customers were reluctant to come to his or others’ restaurants due to the bad name the market had earned because of the illicit narcotics trading.

“Police posted at the nearby check-post would frisk almost everyone, even female visitors, while coming to Wazir Dhand and suspected them of being drug dealers or addicts, which would scare away genuine food lovers from coming to our restaurants,” said Asmatullah.

“Now our customers, with families among them, come to us without any fear and place an order of dishes of their choice with Pattay Danay (barbequed liver pieces wrapped in fat) and Dumpukht most popular among them,” he said.

Lal Chapur, a humble fellow with a slender physique but a specialist chef of Dumpukht, has become a popular name among food lovers as he entertains nearly 3,000 of his customers on daily basis. He said that he offered lunch only and wound up his day business at around 3pm.

With most of the drug peddlers vanishing from the market owing to police crackdown, Wazir Dhand roadside food street has employed nearly 250 waiters along with more than 20 qualified chefs, who are specialists in making quality barbeque, Karahi and Dumpukht.

Lal Bahadar, owner of another restaurant, told Dawn that his business started with the dawn as they slaughtered sheep early in the morning followed by bringing the skinned meat to their restaurants while cooking started at 10am. The daylong cooking and serving of dishes continued till midnight, he added.

He said that previously drug addicts would come from far off places to Wazir Dhand to fetch their required drugs but now the phenomenon changed from use of injurious drugs to that of eating healthy and quality mutton-related dishes.

“We now receive customers from Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera, Kohat and other cities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while at times from Islamabad as well,” said Mr Bahadar. He added that most of the restaurants also offered online service to their customers as was done by the narcotics dealers in the recent past.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024