New threat from across the border Of poppy and poppy
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 14 2023 -

Manipur and by extension India should be worried.

Narco-terrorism as a term has gained currency and not without reason and this is precisely the reason why the report from the United Nations that Myanmar has emerged as the largest source of opium in the world should worry Imphal and Delhi.

Recent trends should also underline the point that the drug cartels know which route to take and after Manipur went up in flames in the evening of May 3, Mizoram has become the main drugs route.

And it doesn’t need rocket science technology to understand why more than 70 percent of those arrested while transporting drugs are drawn from communities other than the Nagas and the Meiteis and this should shut up all arguments.

Add the fact that most of the poppy fields destroyed so far are in areas dominated by the Kuki-Chin community and this should all tell a very significant story.

Manipur has seen it all and has lived it all and while the Government seems intent on taking further its War on Drugs campaign, no big fish has ever been netted.

To cite a case that comes to mind. It was on January 16, 2023 that five policemen were held at Kuraopokpi under Kakching police station along with 1.33 kilogrammes of heroin, 8 bundles of WY tablets weighing 9.15 Kg and Rs 80,000 in cash.

Back then The Sangai Express had raised the need to go beyond the arrest of the five policemen and raised certain questions, such as where the drugs were headed towards.

Were the cops mere couriers and if yes then on whose behalf were they carrying the drugs ?

The money involved in procuring the heroin and 8 bundles of WY tablets would not have been some amount that anyone would have been able to cough up and these very questions itself would have been more than enough lead for the Government to follow up.

Earlier too that have been many cases of drugs running into crores of rupees being seized along the Imphal-Dimapur highway but like the Kuraopokpi case, there has been no follow up.

The questions remain unanswered so far and this is where it becomes incumbent on the part of the Government to spell out the follow up course of actions that have been taken up.

Arresting some drug couriers who may not be much more than just pushers cannot be the end of the War on Drugs campaign and the Government has to demonstrate that it means business.

This is not the time to rest on slogans.

It is amid this reality, the reality that Imphal has launched a War on Drugs campaign, that fingers are increasingly being pointed at the narco terrorists for the ongoing conflict that the report from the United Nations has come that Myanmar is today the largest producer of opium, unseating Afghanistan.

Delhi too must have taken note of the report from the UN and it is only expected of Imphal to raise the bar higher and make the War on Drugs campaign more effective.

Now is the time to deliver a political point, a point that would make Delhi openly acknowledge the fact that the fight against poppy plantations and the fight against drugs is the most prominent reason for the trouble that erupted on May 3 after the Tribal Solidarity March at Churachand-pur and quickly spread to Kangpokpi and Moreh.

To come anywhere near this, Imphal would need to play its card well.

This is where the political acumen of Chief Minister N Biren will be put to test. Things seem to be going in favour of Imphal.

It was no one less than Union Home Minister Amit Shah who announced that the Chief Minister is co-operating.

Again it was Amit Shah who talked about illegal immigration from across the border which is one of the reasons for the ongoing clash.

A point which was backed to the hilt by the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in telling a global audience that illegal immigrants is one of the notable factors for the flame engulfing Manipur.

And it was a silent Prime Minister Narendra Modi who informed Parliament just one day after Amit Shah had given his take, that whatever is there to be said has been said by his Home Minister.

With everything blowing in favour of Imphal, why isn’t Manipur able to capitalise on this ?