The drive against drugs in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam has led the security forces to a few women-run operations.
The anti-drug squad of the police in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tirap district on June 18 arrested a woman identified as P. Gangsa for carrying 5.69 gm of brown sugar concealed in seven plastic containers. The driver of an Assam-registered vehicle she was travelling in was also arrested.
Tirap’s Superintendent of Police Kardak Riba said the woman, on the radar for quite some time, led to the arrest of the kingpin of the drug racked from the Tissa area is the district.
On June 17, the Assam Police arrested two persons, including a woman, at Khatkhati in Karbi Anglong district. They seized from the duo’s possession 164 packets of high-grade heroin weighing 2.12 kg and worth ₹7 crore in the grey market.
Khatkati is close to Nagaland’s Dimapur, seen as the hub of illegal drug, arms and wildlife body parts trade. Kevin Movi, who was arrested with Didi, is from Dimapur.
The woman turned out to be Th. Paone, referred to as Didi by drug buyers. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma referred to her arrest as a major breakthrough, praising the police for busting a “big supply chain network with narco-terror angle” in Karbi Anglong.
The district police said the trap to nab Didi was laid after the seizure of 723 grams of heroin at Barpathar in the adjoining Golaghat district a few days ago.
Between May 22 and 24, the police in Guwahati arrested three women on drug-peddling charges. Picked up from different parts of the city, the trio of Eliza Begum, Anjira Khatoon and Sanu Begum had more than 16 grams of brown sugar among them, police said.
The Border Security Force (BSF) is said to have busted the first women-controlled drug trafficking racket in areas straddling Assam and West Bengal on May 19. The BSF women’s wing foiled the bid of Monomoti and Momota Sarkar to smuggle 4.6 kg of cannabis to Bangladesh across the border.
The two women are from Digaltari village in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district.
“We have caught several drug smugglers besides cattle smugglers and other criminals along the Bangladesh border. But the involvement of women in cross-border crimes is a fairly new development,” a BSF official said.
