Beyond arresting the 5 cops : Now go for the kill!
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 17, 2023 -

Now go for the kill. Go beyond the arrest of five cops and unravel the nexus.

Time to crack the police-drug barons syndicate and this should be the starting point.

Kakching police should be lauded and yet at the same time it is imperative that the matter should not begin and end with the arrest of the five policemen held while smuggling drugs.

So many questions still remain to be answered and while investigation and due interrogations are definitely in line to come anywhere near unravelling the story behind the smuggling bid, it is a bit difficult to believe that the five policemen could have been the brains behind the whole exercise of procuring the drugs, trying to smuggle them across the Imphal-Moreh route to probably take them to the 'market' for sale.

A total of 1.336 Kgs of heroin and 80 thousand WY tablets weighing 9.151 Kgs were the contrabands seized from the possession of the five cops.

The market value of the seized drugs has not been spelt out, at least till the time the report was filed, but it could be anywhere above the Rs 100 lakh mark.

A huge sum, no doubt, and it is a bit hard to believe that the five policemen would have had the financial muscle to cough up the needed amount to procure the said quantity.

Not at all impossible that they could have been backed by a financier, a person with the needed clout to finance the 'operation' starting from 'buying' the said drugs from the source, getting them transferred along the Imphal-Moreh highway and then take them to the designated destination where the drugs would be sold at a huge premium.

And getting men in uniform to procure the drugs from the 'supplier' and have them ferried across the Imphal-Moreh Highway would have sounded foolproof.

Herein probably lies the answer of how the drug consignment managed to evade the other security check posts which dot the Imphal-Moreh route.

This could also answer some of the questions which The Sangai Express has been raising all this while in this very column.

How do drugs manage to evade the numerous checkpoints along the National Highways, when reports of huge consignments of drugs were seized along the Imphal-Dimapur route some time back.

The Government should now work on the latest arrest and crack the nexus. Unravel the identity of the person/s who 'contacted' the five cops to get the drugs smuggled across the Imphal-Moreh route.

Or if the five cops were acting at their own interest, then spell out to whom they intended to hand over the drugs for sale.

Not possible to believe that they would have even entertained the idea of selling more than one Kg of heroin and 80 thousand WY tablets in Manipur alone.

This is the second straight day that The Sangai Express is commenting on the War on Drugs and as more and more arrests are effected, it is obvious that more and more questions have arisen.

What is the status of the four/five village chiefs who were arrested earlier for poppy plantations? Has the Government got any lead from them?

Or is it going to be a case of silence, like the earlier case when no follow up actions were seen when a huge consignment of drugs was seized by Kangpokpi police along the Imphal-Dimapur highway on May 11 in 2022 and three persons were arrested ?

One Head Constable of Manipur police was among the three persons arrested back then and the seized drugs were worth Rs 31 crore and 80 lakh in the international market and Rs 63 lakh, 60 thousand in the local market.

What has happened to the case? Any follow up action on that ? So many questions and to make the War on Drugs 2.0 more effective and meaningful, the Government should try and provide the answers.

For starters keep the people informed of the follow up action on the arrest of the five policemen.