Drugs waging a war on Manipur : Sustaining the offensives
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 22, 2024 -

War on Drugs.

And since the evening of May 3, 2023 it is now more than apparent that this slogan has been turned upside down and far from being a War on Drugs, Manipur is reeling under the War launched by the hands that keep the wheel of the drugs trade churning.

‘The Golden Triangle of drugs - Laos, Thailand and Myanmar - is responsible for the violence in Manipur. Myanmar’s drug cartel, which survives due to its forests where opium and poppy are cultivated has spilled over to Manipur’ reported News18 the other day while quoting sources.

The drug economy has been pegged at Rs 60,000 crore annually and this is the financial muscle which must have kept the bullets and bombs flying and to keep the violence churning, it is apparent that guns and bombs are needed.

This should explain from where the guns and bombs used to attack Meitei settlements have come.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah deftly sidestepped this question while expressing deep concern over the arms looted from the police armouries, most of which are located in the valley districts, but not one word has been said on from where the guns used by the so called Kuki village volunteers have come.

It is also significant to note that ever since Manipur went up in flames in the evening of May 3, 2023, there has been no news of major seizure of drugs in the State with the focus now on Mizoram and while a good number of drug couriers have been arrested, there are still reports of the drug couriers managing to give the slip to the security personnel after discarding the drugs, with the latest case being at Champhai in Mizoram where the Assam Rifles and Mizoram police managed to lay their hands only on the drugs worth Rs 85 crore while the couriers reportedly managed to give them the slip.

Interesting this is, for any drugs worth Rs 85 crore would have been bulky and one wonders how the smugglers managed to slip away after discarding the drugs !

In Manipur too, the script has always been one of total failure on the part of the Government to spell out the progress of any case after the seizure of any huge amount of drugs.

It was in May 2022 that Kangpokpi police managed to seize heroin worth Rs 31 crore from three couriers, including a Head Constable of Manipur police.

This was more than two years back, but there has been no further follow up to the story and common sense says that there could have been big fishes involved in this particular drug case.

Tough to imagine that a Police Head Constable would be able to cough up the needed financial resources to procure drugs involving crores of rupees.

There have been many other cases too and no one knows the follow up story of the drugs worth more than Rs 3 crore seized at Pallel on the Imphal-Moreh highway in January 2023.

Just two instances that come to mind but both pointing to the fact that Manipur has not heard of any big fish being netted, even after the War on Drugs was launched with much fanfare.

It is the same with the drive launched against poppy cultivation.

Other than some tillers of the soil being pulled up and one or two village chiefs held, the Government never did bother to study who has funded the whole activity of poppy cultivation.

Who takes away the harvested plants or pods of the poppy plants ?

Who processes the products of the poppy plants into drugs ?

Who sells them and who takes them to the market for sale ?

All these questions were never, ever answered but The Sangai Express has been raising these questions for long, indeed very long.

Now with reports more than making it clear that it is drugs money which is funding the ongoing conflict, Manipur has to pay the price for not taking things to its logical conclusion.

The existence of some big fishes should have been clear from the beginning but Imphal preferred to ignore the questions raised and the fruit of this nonchalant approach to such sensitive questions is being suffered by the people.

From where did the guns used by the marauders to overrun the relief centre and take away the six hostages at Jiribam come from ?

These are questions the Government should seriously study else any slogan will sound empty, not more than rhetorics.