After the President’s rule was imposed in violence-battered Manipur, Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently chaired a high-level review meeting on the security situation in the state where apart from directing to restore free movement of public on all routes of Manipur from 8 March he said that strict action should be taken against entire network involved in the drug trade to dismantle it and make Manipur drug-free.

Additionally, he directed the acceleration of the fencing work on both sides of the designated entry points on Manipur’s international border. It is worth noting here that the situation in the Northeast State of Manipur has not been normal for almost two years due to ethnic violence. Despite the deployment of security forces, incidents of violence have been coming to the fore frequently. Amit Shah also said that the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is leaving no stone unturned to punish drug traffickers and the Centre resolves to continue combating the drug menace to create a drug-free India.

Manipur a sensitive state in Northeast India has been facing various social, political and security challenges for the last few decades. One of the major problems is the growing drug addiction and smuggling in Manipur. The war against drugs was first declared by the then Manipur CM Biren Singh in 2018 wherein thousands of hectares of land in areas near the international border with Myanmar being used for opium (poppy) cultivation was his government’s target.

The geographical location of Manipur brings it closer to the infamous ‘Golden Triangle’, (Myanmar, Laos and Thailand the area in Southeast Asia that includes civil war-torn Myanmar), one of the largest drug-producing regions in the world. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the region is........

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