Gutka Menace Rules the Roost

TThe ratio of gutka and mainpuri consumers is rapidly growing in Thatta district as 260 more were diagnosed with mouth and throat cancer last year, while around 70% of those are at the last stage lying on the death bed, to make matters worse. Gutka and mainpuri contain betel nuts, tobacco, and lime as their main ingredients.
According to a survey carried out by this scribe, the sale of gutka, mainpuri, and betel nut has soured in all four Talukas of district Thatta despite the ban ordered by the Sindh High Court.
About 840 cases of oral cancer were reported from Thatta in 2020 and all of them were Gutka and Manipuri consumers that included a large number of people from 30 to 40 years old. In addition to that, around 400 patients have succumbed to oral and throat cancer during the past two years out of 2246 total patients.

Dr. Shyam Sunder, the head of dental clinics at the Civil Hospital Thatta, says the cases of oral cancer and throat cancer were reported from all four Talukas of district Thatta during the past couple of years, showing the fact that gutka consumption is becoming a common practice across the Thatta district.

"Around 1,34000 people in the district are suffering from different oral and dental infections mainly caused by extensive consumption of gutka and mainpuri," according to Dr. Shyam Sunder. "There are 9 private and government dental clinics for the treatment of such oral and dental diseases but following abject poverty and illiteracy very negligible population from the low-lying areas of the district is able to visit these clinics,'' says Dr. Sunder.
Many cases of oral infection cannot be detected owing to lack of awareness and sheer ignorance of people regarding the sensitivity of the issue.

Sharing the data of gutka addicts in the district Thatta, Dr. Shyam Sunder says the situation has turned alarming as 40 percent consumers among the etire lot of Gutka consumers in the district are women and 35% of them are children, most of them aged around 10 to 16. Quoting a survey Dr. Sunder said that most of the schoolchildren who consume betel nuts and other hazardous chewing items on the insistence of their friends finally end up consuming gutka, mainpuri or such hazardous as substances as opium, hashish, and liquor, and such like.

In 2021, Police registered 254 cases against ghuka suppliers and other drug dealers, raided some 17 gutka factories and confiscated around 84,000 kilogram material used in the making of gutka.
A social activist on condition of anonymity told that notorious ghutka mafia of the district has had the patronage of local police and that is the actual reason behind the rise of gutka menace in such a historical and beautify city of Thatta.