Poppy cultivation | Photo courtesy: Special arrangement
The disturbed state of Manipur is all set to renew the crackdown on poppy cultivation with a refreshed task force comprising officials drawn from different departments.
According to data released by the government, poppy cultivation had spread to as much as 18,000 acres of land in the hill regions between 2017 and 2023, which was eradicated in a series of operations over the past few years.
Read More: Israel Hamas War: The IMEC link to the escalations
Seizures indicate that the most prolific routes to India are through Mizoram, which is linked to different destinations in the country. From the Northeast, some consignments of heroin are smuggled out to Bangladesh, which is evidenced by the confiscations of heroin by the Border Security Force (BSF) along the border over the past three years.
The red circle indicates the location of Tonzang in Myanmar | Courtesy: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
The burgeoning cultivation at Tonzang was referred to in a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released in January, which said, "Chin State showed high poppy cultivation density in the mountains north of Tonzang town, near the international border with India." The report also mentioned a similar trend in other regions of Myanmar with "increased sophistication of farming practices and concentration of opium poppy cultivation."
Read More: Child Brides: Victims of Pandemic, Poverty & Patriarchy
Why has Tonzang emerged as a hotspot of poppy cultivation?
In Tonzang, an official claimed that poppy cultivation was the result of an interplay of "many factors such as poverty, lack of services, and insecurity, which were aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, very high farm-gate prices for opium, and the military coup early in 2021 that pushed rural households to rely more on opium cultivation."
Figures given in the UNODC report about the size of the plantations seemed to confirm the conclusions arrived at by the officials. It said that the plots ranged between 0.25 hectares to 2 hectares, indicating that most of the cultivators are small-scale farmers. They were found at altitudes between 1000 metres and 2000 metres above mean sea level. Cultivation starts from September and ends in January, marking the completion of one crop cycle, which is also the same practice in other regions of Myanmar.
Poppy cultivation in Myanmar's Tonzang | Photo courtesy: Special arrangement
According to UNODC, the average dry opium yield per hectare in Myanmar was 19.8 kilograms, and it requires 10 kilograms of dry opium to produce 1 kilogram of heroin. But under sophisticated conditions, it requires 8 kilograms of opium to produce 1 kilogram of heroin. Tonzang had about 640 hectares under poppy with a total potential of 13 metric tons of opium in 2022.
Read More: India’s Air Quality Crisis: Why Isn’t the CPCB Revising Its Air Quality Standards?
The officials are firmly of the view that an organised apparatus and network exist to facilitate the cultivation of poppy and production of heroin in Tonzang, ensuring the supply of funds to the farmers and trafficking of heroin to multiple destinations. They did not rule out the possibility of the involvement of militant outfits that had linkages with suppliers in other parts of India and Myanmar. They also arrived at the conclusion that poppy cultivation in Manipur was the outcome of a 'domino effect' of developments in Tonzang.
Poppy Cultivation | Colossal Production of Heroin
Pu Vela's claims are echoed by Indian government officials who believe that a massive quantity of heroin produced in Tonzang could be flowing into India. They said that Tonzang had the capacity to produce 1.3 metric tons (1.3 tonnes) of heroin last year, which is 1300 kilograms. The seizures of opium and heroin in Myanmar's Chin State between November 2021 and October 2022 were negligible, with only one report that 10 kilograms of heroin had been confiscated in Kale, which borders Chin State.
Heroin and synthetic drugs originating in Myanmar (such as Yaba) are seized almost every week, mostly in Mizoram and Assam. On 7 October, three persons were arrested in Assam's border district of Karimganj after they were found carrying heroin concealed in soap cases inside a vehicle. The unrest in Manipur has prompted the traffickers to focus more on the routes through Mizoram that link up with Assam and other destinations on the country's mainland and with Bangladesh.
Rajeev Bhattacharya is a senior journalist in Assam in India. He has worked with The Telegraph, The Indian Express, The Times of India and Times Now, and was the managing editor of Seven Sisters Post. He is a Chevening Fellow and author of “Rendezvous With Rebels: Journey to Meet India’s Most Wanted Men” and “Lens & The Guerrilla: Insurgency in India’s Northeast.” He reports on India’s northeast and its border regions with Myanmar, Bhutan, China and Bangladesh.
To ACCESS and SUPPORT our exclusive stories and impactful public interest journalism, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click on THE PROBE'S LOGO below to subscribe.