iMizoram : i Mizoram

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Mizoram PHED employee dies while cleaning water tank

An employee of the Mizoram Public Health Engineering department died while cleaning a water tank at a place near the river Tlawng on the outskirts of the state capital, official sources said today.

Rohmingthanga (47) was sucked inside a pipe while cleaning a water tank last night and died there, the sources said.

Volunteers took a long time to take out the body of Rohmingthanga as he was firmly stuck inside the pipe used for Aizawl water supply.

His body was found by some people this morning.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Mizoram court convicts meth smuggler

A special court in Mizoram state capital here has made its first conviction against a smuggler of party drugs called methamphetamine or 'crystal meth' that has thrown up a new challenge to anti-drug fighters in the state.

The special court for NDPS Act here convicted a Myanmarese national for smuggling heroin and methamphetamine two days ago. Khenthanga, 47, a resident of Tahan 'F' Group, Myanmar's Sagai division, sentenced to four years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000, is the first person to be convicted in connection with methamphetamine in Mizoram. Khenthanga was arrested on July 6, 2013, with 133 grams of heroin and some quantity of methamphetamine, he smuggled from Myanmar. He told investigators that he smuggled the methamphetamine tablets as samples. Already in the midst of a fierce fight against heroin, illicit pharmaceutical drugs (PD) and alcohol, Mizoram's anti-drug fighters face a new threat of methamphetamine from Myanmar.

The meth factories across Myanmar border in China are partly fueled by pseudoephedrine smuggled out from India into those countries. 'Pseudoephedrine is bought from other parts of India and smuggled out to Burma through our State, which is then used to make methamphetamine and other derivatives which is smuggled across the world,' said an excise official. Three major seizures of methamphetamine have been made in Mizoram this year. Customs officials seized 10,000 tablets of methamphetamine, reddish-orange in colour and each marked 88, from Melbuk village in Champhai district on April 30. Two Myanmarese nationals - a woman named Lalruaipuii, 26, and Lalhnunpuia Bawihtlung, 45 - were arrested in this connection.

The seized drugs have a street value of Rs 1 crore, officials said. On March 5, officials seized 15,000 tablets of meth, smuggled from Myanmar, in Aizawl and arrested a Myanmarese national. All the accused have been booked under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. Earlier on January 31, the excise police seized 120,000 tablets of the same drug in Aizawl. The seized drugs were valued at Rs 2.4 crore in the local market and it is said to be the biggest meth haul in Mizoram so far. Excise police seized 670 tablets of meth in 2001, 971 in 2002 and 287 in 2011.

The first seizure of meth was way back in the late nineties, they said. Rumours have it that the peddlers are here and if the Mizo social networks are to be believed, the evil business often kick starts with a free offer of samples to impressionable youngsters as in heroin addiction. Meth and its family is highly addictive and therefore the high danger.

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.

Arrest warrant issued for police intel inspector in drug trafficking case; granted interim bail

Myanmar is considered Asia' biggest source of methamphetamine, a highly addictive narcotic popular as a party drug due to it's energy-enhancing effects but for which there is till now no known medical treatment worldwide. (Source: IE)

Summary

An inspector was granted bail after Mizoram Narcotics dept obtained an arrest warrant against him for supplying meth.

An inspector with the Mizoram Police’s intelligence unit in Aizawl has been granted interim bail after the Excise and Narcotics Department’s Anti-Narcotics Squad obtained a warrant for his arrest following a drug trafficker’s statement that the inspector had given her a consignment of 10,000 methamphetamine pills.
The inspector is currently attached to the District Special Bureau under the Aizawl Superintendent of Police, and has been a key investigator in several high profile drug seizures in the past few months, including busts which led to the arrests of then Congress spokesperson Lalrozara, then Mizoram Youth Commission member Lalremsangi Fanai and a close relative of prominent Aizawl businessman F Hrangvela.
He was granted bail on medical grounds by Special Judge (ND&PS) Lucy Lalrinthari of the Aizawl District Court on Monday after the inspector’s lawyer cited medical problems. The same judge had earlier issued the arrest warrant against the inspector.
The Anti-Narcotics Squad had on July 20 seized 10,000 tablets of methamphetamine in an Aizawl neighborhood and arrested three people who were trafficking the consignment worth Rs 22 lakhs from Khawzawl, a town in the state’s east not far from the Indo-Myanmar border.
Myanmar is considered Asia’ biggest source of methamphetamine, a highly addictive narcotic popular as a party drug due to it’s energy-enhancing effects but for which there is till now no known medical treatment worldwide.
One of the arrested persons told Anti-Narcotics Squad investigators of being a long-time informer of the inspector and that the methamphetamine consignment was in lieu of a reward. The accused currently has another drug trafficking case with the Anti-Narcotics Squad, however, which involves pseudoephedrine, a drug used to manufacture methamphetamine.
An investigator said the police inspector was summoned for questioning last week and he told interrogators he had obtained the pills from an earlier seizure of about 50,000 methamphetamine pills.
Investigators however said both the arrested trafficker and the inspector retracted their statements when the duo were interrogated in the same room, apparently after the inspector asked the trafficker if there was any evidence of the drugs handover.

Mizoram: Massive search operation underway for missing constable

The search operation at Zo Ngaw, the forest through which the Aizawl-Mamit road passes. (Source: IE)

Summary

Massive search operation underway in Mizoram for police constable who went missing in the woods.

A massive search operation was launched Monday to find an on-duty police constable who is believed to have disappeared somewhere in the forests between Mizoram capital Aizawl and western Mamit town on Sunday.
James Ramhmingthanga, a constable posted in the Mizoram-Tripura border town of Kanhmun, had come riding a motorcycle to Aizawl on an assignment on Saturday.
He had reported at the Vaivakawn police station and returned on Sunday morning. He called his wife along the way from a village called Dampui, which borders a thick forest through which the lone road, a winding route perched on the mountain-side, that connects Mamit with Aizawl passes.
But James never reached home.
The Mamit district police, rescue teams and close to a thousand Young Mizo Association volunteers from at least three towns and villages took part in the search operation that began Sunday night.
Mamit district Addl SP Lalchunglura said there have been no trace of the constable nor of the motorcycle and no leads have as yet been found.

Four bodies, including two pre-teens, fished out of two rivers in Mizoram

Lalrinpuia and Lalrosanga had gone missing on Saturday evening on the banks of the Tuirivang river.

Four bodies – including of two pre-teens – were fished out from two swollen rivers in Mizoram on Monday by volunteers that have been searching for the bodies for almost three days.

Lalrinpuia, 13, and Lalrosanga, 12, had gone missing on Saturday evening on the banks of the Tuirivang river near Phulpui village where they lived. They had gone to the river to fish.

A search operation involving volunteers from several neighboring villages began that night itself, and all churches in the area closed their doors on Sunday so villagers could take part in the search.

The search continued through the night when, at 11 am Monday, volunteers found the bodies of the two boys after pulling out some bamboo poles they had stuck in the river to grab the bodies as they were swept downriver.

In another incident, volunteers found the bodies of two men who went missing after a maxicab they were traveling in from Hailakandi in Assam plunged into the swollen Tlawng river around midnight Thursday.

Five of their co-passengers had been thrown out of the vehicle as it tumbled down the gorge bordering the river, and the second driver had fled and returned to Assam.

A massive search operation involving several hundred volunteers was launched Friday to find the two missing men, including the driver Mintu Deb and another person identified only as Vinod.

Their bodies were finally found around 9 am Monday several score downriver volunteers, and were sent home to their families after post-mortems.

Monday, July 28, 2014

50 kg ganja seized

Mizoram Excise and Narcotics

department officials seized 50 kg of ganja at a hamlet in the Mizoram-Manipur-Myanmar border, excise department sources said here today.

Two persons were also arrested during the raid at the Khuangphah hamlet yesterday.

The two, Vanlalliana and Lalbiakthanga, were booked under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, the sources said.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Trader killed near Assam-Mizoram border

SILCHAR: A trader was hacked to death by suspected miscreants at Lailapur in Assam's Cachar district, 55 km from here. Locals spotted the body lying in a pool of blood at a playground near an Army camp at Lailapur near Assam-Mizoram border on Sunday.

Police said the deceased was identified as Moin Uddin. Moin, a resident of Ramkrishnanagar in Karimganj district, was staying at a rented house at Lailapur. He ran a confectionary shop there.

The body was sent to Silchar Medical Collage Hospital for autopsy. It had deep marks of wounds on its neck by a sharp weapon.

Police have arrested Rajan Das in connection with the murder. Rajan worked at Moin's shop, sources said. He is being interrogated at Dholai police station. Police are in search of other miscreants.

With Eid round the corner, security has been intensified in the area.