Unfolding script under War on Drugs drive : Unanswered questions
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 26, 2024 -

Nothing is right. The incident occurred on November 20, as per the Makhan Village Authority.

The incident came to light or rather came to the knowledge of The Sangai Express and other Imphal based media houses on November 23.

On November 24 Chief Minister N Biren took to X pledging action against poppy growers, ostensibly in reaction to what happened at Makhan village.

And what did happen on November 20 ?

According to Makhan Village Authority, a 30 member team of police personnel led by the Additional SP of Kangpokpi police had to beat a hasty retreat after they were confronted by the aggressive and well armed poppy growers.

The police team accompanied by volunteers of Makhan village were on their way to destroy the poppy plantation at Makhan village.

According to the VA of Makhan village the poppy cultivators, identified as ‘Kuki groups and individuals’ had encroached on the land of Makhan village and started the poppy cultivation and it was against this that the police team and village volunteers had proceeded to the spot to raze the plantation to the ground.

Reports carried in other publications said that the police team had to walk for hours to reach the site of the poppy cultivation and yet other news reports on the same incident dubbed the cultivators as a ‘group of nomads’.

After the BJP led Government came to power after dislodging the Congress in the 2017 Assembly elections, the War on Drugs campaign was launched in 2018 amidst much fanfare and publicity and while numerous poppy plantations were destroyed and razed the ground, there was never, ever any report of the Government going beyond the exercise of targeting the poppy fields.

It was with a reason why The Sangai Express had always maintained that the Government would need to do more and find out who has financed the poppy cultivation.

Who markets them, who buys the harvest poppy plants or pods or any part of the poppy plant are questions which have been raised before, long before Manipur went up in flames on May 3, 2023.

Yet no answer has been forthcoming and this was what was stupefying.

War on Drugs cannot and should not be understood only within the context of the number of poppy plantations being destroyed but should involve unmasking the people behind the whole exercise of financing the poppy plantation, buying them from the farmers or the tillers of the soil, packaging them and taking them for sale to the market, the drugs market.

Raising these questions was in vain for no answers came and the best that the people would have heard as follow up stories of the drive against poppy plantations would have been the arrest of some cultivators and two or three village chiefs.

The result of such a ham handed approach is there for all to see in the manner in which the police had to beat a hasty retreat when challenged by the poppy growers on November 20 with the incident coming to light or hitting the pages of the newspapers only on November 23.

The Government would seriously need to demonstrate that their intent is more than coining catchy slogans such as War on Drugs and if one goes by the not so recent past there is not much to write home about.

It was as recently as January 2023 that drugs worth about Rs 3.35 crore were seized from a police vehicle at Pallel on the Imphal-Moreh route.

It was sensational no doubt, for the drugs were seized from a police vehicle and the story went viral but like so many other cases, no one knows what has happened after that.

The cops arrested with the drugs may be in jail, but what about the follow up ?

Rs 3.35 crore is a huge amount by any standard and it is hard to believe that the arrested cops would have had the resources to get it from the source and try to smuggle it out without backings.

The question, who are the big fishes involved in this drug trade has never ever been spelt out though this is not the first time that The Sangai Express has raised this question.

Earlier in 2022 Kangpokpi police seized drugs worth Rs 31.8 crore along the National Highway making it the biggest drug seizure case in the district back then.

A police Head Constable along with two others were arrested.

Like other drug related stories there was no further follow up story.

What has happened ?

Is this the script of the War on Drugs campaign ?

Only the Govt can answer.