Rs 66 lakh worth meth pills seized in Aizawl

Methamphetamine tablets with a street value of Rs 66,50,000 were seized in Mizoram state capital Aizawl in the last two days. Mizoram excise & narcotics department said today its anti-narcotics squad recovered 18,000 more tablets of methamphetamine today from the same woman from whom 20,000 were seized on Sunday last. The woman, a Myanmarese national identified as Lalhnuni(45), has been booked under NDPS Act, 1985. She told investigators that she smuggled the contraband from Myanmar where they are manufactured in underground laboratories. This is the fifth seizure of methamphetamine in Mizoram during the last eight months, a sign that the frontier state is facing a new drug threat in addition to heroin and abused pharmaceutical drugs it has been combating for decades. On July 21 last, three persons were arrested for transporting meth tablets, weighing 1.22 kgs and worth Rs 22 lakh, in Aizawl. Customs officials seized 10,000 tablets of methamphetamine from Melbuk village in Champhai district on April 30 last. The seized drugs had a street value of Rs 1 crore. On March 5 last, excise police seized 15,000 tablets of meth in Aizawl.

Earlier on January 31 last, the excise police seized 120,000 tablets of the same drug in Aizawl. The drugs seized on January 31 were valued at Rs 2.4 crore in the local market and it was said to be the biggest meth haul in Mizoram so far. Most of the meth pills seized in Mizoram are reddish-orange in colour and were mostly marked '88', an insignia the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) identifies as one of the more widespread brands likely manufactured by ethnic militants in Myanmar.

The meth labs in Myanmar are fueled by pseudoephedrine smuggled out of India mainly through the Northeast. Those arrested in connection with pseudoephedrine in Mizoram included politicians, a police official, and renowned drug store owners in Aizawl. With 410 kms of international border with Myanmar, Mizoram is already part of the Golden Triangle, as its main doorway in its western borders.

How is it going to defend the youth of the region from this fresh attack of drugs is the moot question, even as media reports say that the meth wave is sweeping communities around the world. 'It's nothing less than a call for all hands on the deck', as a state excise official said.