Border tunnel alarming, says FOCS

    26-Jan-2025
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By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Jan 25: The Federation of Civil Society Organisations (FOCS) Manipur has expressed serious concern over the discovery of a huge tunnel used by drug smugglers at the Mizoram-Myanmar border..
After a huge quantity of psychotropic drugs was seized by a combined team of Assam Rifles and Assam Police in Cachar, Assam on January 19, 2025, the drug smugglers disclosed that there is a tunnel at the India-Myanmar border in Mizoram, large enough for movement of trucks.
The drug smugglers reportedly disclosed that they used the tunnel for smuggling drugs to North East India from across the international border.
It is both surprising and alarming that there is a huge tunnel at the India-Myanmar border, unknown to the large number of Indian security forces deployed along the international border.
Saying that the tunnel is a big challenge to India’s internal security, FOCS demanded a transparent investigation and punishment of all the culprits.
Connection between the sustained Chin-Kuki-Zo aggression in Manipur and the large tunnel built at Mizoram-Myanmar border for smuggling drugs into North East India cannot be ruled out, FOCS said in a press release.
How Chin-Kuki-Zo people have been funding the sustained war in Manipur with money earned from poppy plantation and drug business is known to all.
It is also no secret that the Chin-Kuki-Zo people have been waging wars to create a Christian Nation State by carving out parts of Manipur, Mizoram, Myanmar and Chittagong Hill Tract of Bangladesh, it said.
Given these facts, the Government of India must take a strong decision to bring an end to the Manipur crisis immediately.
If the Government of India, driven by its geopolitics, fails to take such a decision to protect the lives and properties of Manipuri people, the people may be compelled to adopt a collective decision to determine their own future, it added.