INDIA: Worry Over Growing Influx of Drugs

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Feb 22 2001 (IPS) - From a major transit route for illicit drugs produced in central and South-east Asia, India is fast becoming a big end user of these psychotropic substances, warn top drug control officials. “For decades, India had a role as a major transit point for processed heroin…but is now itself turning into a consumer,” says C. Chakrabarty a member of the Austria-based, International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

According to Chakrabarty, who was here for the launch of the INCB’s annual report Wednesday, the change in urban lifestyles, triggered by India’s decade-old economic liberalisation, is leading to large-scale drug abuse in the country.

Top Indian law enforcer R.K. Raghavan, who heads the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), says international drug cartels have begun eyeing India as a destination for their merchandise.

The danger, says Raghavan, is that psychotropic substances are becoming “purer, cheaper and deadlier”.

“Synthetic drugs like ‘ecstasy’, which are going to be the nightmare of the 21st century, are bound to come into India in a major way through Myanmar (Burma),” points out R. Sundaralingam, narcotics consultant to the Interpol Secretariat at Lyons, France.

However, India’s share in the global market for raw opium has declined from about 75 percent a decade ago, to about 30 percent currently, says Chakrabarty.

India is also a major source for ‘chemical precursors’ like acetic anhydride and potassium permanganate.

These are smuggled out in large quantities to clandestine heroin-manufacturing units in Burma, Thailand and Laos, says Ramesh Bhattacharji, commissioner in India’s Central Bureau of Narcotics.

The chemicals are also taken through Dubai, to illegal drug producing laboratories in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he adds.

Indian narcotics authorities, working with the INCB, recently prevented 26 separate shipments of 1,810 tonnes of potassium permanganate from being diverted to cocaine factories around the world.

Beginning March, another joint operation, named ‘Topaz’ will crack down on the smuggling of industrial acetic anhydride to drug units in central and South-east Asia, say narcotics officials.

According to Indian narcotics official Bhattacharji, acetic anhydride, used for making heroin, has been smuggled out for years across India’s eastern border. Processed heroin is then smuggled back into India’s north-eastern border states, which adjoin Burma.

Bhattacharj accuses influential local politicians in the north- eastern states, of having a “vested interest” in the drug trafficking.

Chingkolal Thansing, a medical practitioner from north-eastern Manipur state, estimates that at least 40 percent of youth in Manipur have become heroin addicts. Many of them have become HIV positive from sharing needles to inject the drug, he says.

But Bhattacharji says authorities are more worried about the increasing number of seizures of synthetic, ‘mind-bending’ drugs, such as ecstasy, which are known to originate in Burma.

These are brought into India through the India-Burma border crossing at Moreh in Manipur, he says.

A tablet of ecstasy can be bought in the Burmese border town of Thamu for one U.S. dollar and sold in Moreh for six dollars, says the Indian narcotics official.

“The problem seems to have started with Burmese youth coming across the border into Moreh to get their fix,” says Bhattacharji. Indian narcotics officials say that this is happening because the Burmese army is getting tough with drug sales within that country.

Indian authorities are also worried by what officials often refer to as ‘narco-terrorism’ — using the profits of drug- trafficking to fund armed insurgent activities within the country.

According to Neeraj Kumar, a senior official in the CBI — India’s top sleuthing agency — drug money is being used to support Kashmiri militants in India’s troubled northern border province.

The narcotics are also used to “fire up” members of Kashmiri militant suicide squads for their deadly attacks on security establishments in the province, says Kumar.

The international narcotics agency’s annual report notes that the drug-trafficking is closely linked to arms smuggling and insurgencies in the central Asian states.

According to the report, the ‘Golden Crescent’ countries of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan have particularly high addiction rates of opium, heroin and benzodiazepine in the form of pharmaceutical tablets.