Minister in charge of Social Welfare, Paul Lyngdoh, today informed that the unrest in Manipur has led to a shift in the drug trade to Meghalaya, which is a major challenge.
“We are bent upon eradicating drug menace. The unfortunate thing is, because of a strategic location, very close to the Golden Triangle, and the fact that the unrest in Manipur has led to a shift of the trade from that particular area to Meghalaya, that is a major challenge,” said Lyngdoh.
He informed, “I will be visiting the national capital briefly and make sure that the leaders in the government of India are well briefed about the seriousness and the scale of drug trafficking that is happening in the state”.
Asked if the DGP and law enforcing agencies have been kept on alert, he said, “Yes, they are aware, in fact, which is why now the Anti Narcotics Tax Force (ANTF) is being strengthened. The dream mission now we’ll have retired IPs, as Mission Director. So we are making a lot of moves to ensure that we are able to first reduce and then eradicate the problem”.
The Social Welfare Minister said, “A lot of things are happening which may not be visible to your naked eyes, but a lot of friends are in the process of constituting the Village Defence Party (VDP)”.
Informing that there are just 11 legally constituted VDPs, he said most of the areas which fall under high risk zones do not have these VDPs.
When they do not have them, there is no backup of the law, and most of the time they end up getting frustrated because they have to keep appearing in court… So all of that will be substantially reduced once we have the VDP in place, because it is a legal framework backed up by the law and which works in tandem with the police department”.
Talking about pressure groups like HYC action against drug menace in the city and police issuing summons, he said, “The President of the HYC himself has a legal background. You should ask him. Ask him, what does he know about NDPS? About PITNDPS, whether the law of the land allows him to go and catch all of people… You can ask the lawyer”.
On HYC members seizing drugs and burning it, he said, “Now, when you do anything that contravenes or goes against the primacy of law, your activity becomes illegal, so you might just grab headlines, but it doesn’t make any difference at the field level, you make news for a couple of days, but then whatever you do will not stand the scrutiny of the court, and therefore it is self defeating”
“All I can say is that if you go through the NDPS, any person who seizes, say drugs or narcotics, and the narcotics are in his possession, he becomes the one who has to explain why the drugs are in his custody. That’s the law of the land. So it’s very clear, which is why we are trying to amplify the ambit of our operation,” he added.
He said that it is for the first time that the Department of Social Welfare has stepped into this particular space where they have gone proactive on the anti narcotics campaign.
“ Earlier, it was just the police department. Now we have the dream mission headed by the Chief Minister. It shows the level of our seriousness, and we would like to do things in a way that we have the protection of the laws of the land, so that we are not on the wrong side of the law,” he added.
