Mizoram launches Operation Jericho-2 against drugs before festive season

Mizoram on Friday launched the second phase of Operation Jericho, its campaign against drug trafficking, with police saying the aim is to choke the flow of narcotics into and through the state ahead of the Christmas and New Year season.

Director General of Police Sharad Agarwal formally started the operation at a programme at the police headquarters in Aizawl on October 30, officials said.

Who is being deployed

For Operation Jericho-2, the police will draw on personnel from the 1st, 3rd and 5th battalions of the Mizoram Armed Police and the 1st Indian Reserve Battalion. Superintendents of Police in the districts concerned will supervise the deployment.

Officials said the new phase will concentrate on districts that share borders with neighbouring countries. Mizoram shares long international borders with Myanmar to the east and Bangladesh to the west, and the Myanmar frontier in particular has long been a route for heroin and methamphetamine entering India.

The plan rests on four pillars, according to the police: intelligence-led enforcement, closer coordination between agencies, sharper vigilance along the border and the involvement of communities. The stated goal is not only to seize consignments but also to break up the networks that move them.

What the first phase achieved

The first phase began on September 1 last year as a joint effort of the Mizoram Police, the Excise and Narcotics Department and the Central Young Mizo Association (CYMA), the state's largest civil society body.

Police were stationed in 22 villages along the India-Myanmar border in Champhai district, working alongside district police, village defence parties, civil society groups and local YMA branches.

By March 31 this year, when that dedicated deployment was withdrawn, the drive had led to 203 cases, 298 arrests and the seizure of narcotics valued at about Rs 391.95 crore, police said.

District police then kept the operation going with their own personnel. Counting that later work, the campaign's tally had grown to 447 cases, 663 arrests and drugs worth Rs 843.47 crore seized as of October 26, according to officials.

Why the timing matters

The relaunch comes as enforcement agencies continue to report large seizures on routes through Mizoram. Earlier this week, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence said it had recovered about 30 kg of methamphetamine tablets hidden in an office table on the Aizawl-Champhai road, part of a wider haul of around 50 kg intercepted in Mizoram and Assam.

Police have asked the public to stay alert during the festive weeks and to pass on any information about drug trafficking or peddling to the authorities promptly.