War on drugs a herculean task in eastern Nagaland

Easy access to international borders, govt. apathy reasons for increase in drug use

DIMAPUR— Even as student organisations in eastern Nagaland are waging an all-out war against drugs, they face a herculean task, especially against the backdrop of the eastern districts sharing borders with Myanmar and other NE states.

The apathy of the state government seems to be another dampener in the fight against drug menace.

As the Konyak Students’ Union (KSU) president Noklem Konyak told Eastern Mirror that given the challenges involved in tracking down and dismantling drug networks, sufficient human resources and time have to be invested.

Since drug menace poses a serious challenge to both the government and civil society, Noklem asserted that the state needs to put in more efforts to control the menace.

With Mon district sharing borders with Myanmar and the state of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, the district has been for long a safe haven for all sorts of illegal activities.

Drug abuse and trafficking have drastically increased across the district, but unfortunately the government has “miserably failed to contain the situation,” the student leader alleged.

“As a non government organisation we can work just as a pressure group and not as a law enforcing agency. But when the departments concerned are not working zealously to contain the issue, we have to intervene as we cannot be a silent spectator to what is happening right in front of us and when the society is tearing down,” he said.

Noklem also pointed out that there is no government-run rehabilitation centre for the drug addicts in Mon district.

There are some “locally arranged” rehab centre-cum-prayer homes, but there is need for sustainable rehabilitation-cum-treatment centres run by the government, he added.

He also informed that KSU had on June 1, 2023, written a representation to the chief minister to set up anti-narcotic cells under Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985, in all police stations within Mon district and to make them operational within one month from the date of the submission of the representation.

The representation also demanded setting up of treatment-cum-rehabilitation centres in the district with adequate infrastructure and manpower, and to penalise law-enforcing personnel or any other officials involved in illicit drug and narcotic activities.

The district has witnessed an increase in criminal activities due to “negligence” of law enforcing agencies and also rise in use of drugs, especially “sunflower”, he lamented.

President of Phom Students Conference (PSC), Dape informed Eastern Mirror that in 2022 the PSC tried to open a rehab centre in the district through the state government as the district has no rehabilitation centre.

He also said the union had submitted applications for the same to the Labour department in 2022 and other departments as well.

But till date there has been no positive response while some departments have shown no interest, Dape said.

Though the number of drug users in the district is increasing at an alarming rate, he admitted that as a student body they cannot take law into their own hands. Dape however remarked that PSC’s federating units in the villages are doing an “excellent job” in tackling drug abuse in their respective villages with their respective resolutions.

The Eastern Nagaland Students’ Federation (ENSF) president Chingmak Chang said that the respective federating units under ENSF are trying their best to tackle the drug menace in their respective districts.

As per his observation, the use of drugs in eastern districts increased during the post-Covid pandemic, more so because of the easy access to international boundaries.

“After the Nagaland Liquor Prohibition Act 1989 was implemented, the use of drugs during the 90’s increased because of the non-availability of liquor. So the story is repeating: during the Covid pandemic the restriction imposed on travelling led to non-availability of liquor while the drugs were able to enter through the international boundaries. So people started consuming drugs and the numbers are rapidly increasing,” Chang opined.

He also suggested a two-way approach to control drug use – facilitating the drug users through rehabilitation centres and skill development training in the rehab centres to keep them busy.

There are no proper check gates at the international borders and also the ‘Free Movement Regime’ of 16 km on either side of the border is another issue, he said.

Also read: Heroin worth INR 31 cr seized in Mizoram; Myanmarese among 5 arrested