Manipur authorities destroy illegal poppy farms in Ukhrul district
Illegal poppy farms spread across 76 acres have been destroyed in Manipur's Ukhrul district in the past two days, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
A joint team of the state police, forest department and the Manipur Rifles destroyed 39 acres of illegal poppy farms on Tuesday. They razed another 37 acres on Wednesday, Mr Singh said in the post.
The total area of poppy farms destroyed by the state authorities in the past two days is roughly the size of 40 football fields.
The Manipur government maintains persistent action against large-scale illegal poppy cultivation in the hills to make opium and heroin for feeding an insidious drug-trafficking network has disrupted the illegal trade in the state, hit by ethnic violence between the hill-majority Kuki tribes and the valley-majority Meiteis.
Detailing the joint operation at Tora Champhung Hill Range in Ukhrul district, 80 km from the state capital Imphal, Mr Singh said, "16 hectares (39 acres) of illicit poppy fields were destroyed, 20 huts burned, and other infrastructures such as pipeline connection, fertilisers, salt, herbicides, pesticides etc. were destroyed as well."
"... On the second day of joint poppy destruction drive by police, forest (department) and MR (Manipur Rifles) at Phalee-Tora-Champhung Hill Range in Ukhrul district, 25 huts were burned and 15 hectares (37 acres) of poppy plantation also destroyed," said the Chief Minister, who belongs to the BJP.
"The state government is intensifying its war on drugs and will not stop until the drugs menace is completely rooted out from the state," said Mr Singh, who faces calls by the Kuki tribes for his resignation over the ethnic violence in the state.
The Kuki tribes have alleged Mr Singh's government has branded them as "narco terrorists" and illegal immigrants from junta-ruled Myanmar, which led to insecurity among the valley-majority Meiteis and the subsequent violence that has claimed over 180 lives.
Subsequently, 10 tribal MLAs, some from the BJP, announced a demand for a separate administration, something which the insurgent groups United People's Front (UPF) and the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) have raised in the past. The Kuki group Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) on Wednesday announced a "self-government whether the centre recognises it or not."
Doubling down on his comments on the "war on drugs" campaign, however, Mr Biren thanked the police in Ukhrul, the 6 Manipur Rifles and the forest department for a successful operation in the Phalee-Champhung-Changta-Tora hill ranges.
The Chief Minister said the operation to destroy illegal poppy farms "will continue in the coming days till this illegal practice is completely wiped out."
The state government has destroyed 18,664 acres of poppy plantations from 2017 till May-end 2023, data from Manipur's special anti-drugs unit Narcotics and Affairs of Border (NAB) shows. Kangpokpi, 45 km from Imphal, had the biggest share of poppy plantations razed at 4,397 acres during the five-year period, followed by Churachandpur at 2,700 acres, the NAB data shows. These two districts have become a no-go zone for the valley Meiteis following the ethnic clashes.