Newmai News Network
Imphal | February 3
A massive demonstration staged by women vendors of Ima Keithel (all-women-run markets) in Imphal on Friday echoed support to Manipur government’s ongoing war on drugs mission.
The women vendors staged the demonstration under the aegis of the Working Committee on Khwairamband Ima Keithel, the apex body of vendors of the three all-women-run markets on the street near the markets.
While displaying placards read as ‘We support war on drugs’, the vendors shouted various slogans supporting the 'war on drugs' campaign. ‘Let’s save the state from opium war,’ another placard read.
Talking to the reporters, co-convener of the Working Committee on Khwairamband Ima Keithel, Asem Nirmala Devi asserted that the 'war on drugs' campaign launched by the government under the leadership of chief minister N Biren Singh is to save the people of the state from the evil impacts of the drugs.
She said that Manipur started getting the impact of drug trafficking and abuse in the 1970s. Thousands of previous lives have been claimed by the use of drugs. Uncountable number of mothers has lost their children while hundreds of women have become widows at their young age, she also said.
Opium and its products have not only drawn youths into the jaws of the dead but also ruined the state. “It is a hidden war to eliminate Manipuri society,” she said.
The co-convener of the committee then alleged that the poppy cultivation was introduced in the state by the “immigrant poppy cultivators” from neighbouring country Myanmar who entered the state through the porous international border and settled illegally in the hill areas of the state.
Since they introduced the practice, the same spread across the hill districts of the state after the hill villagers were lured by drug lords by investing a huge amount of money, she went on to allege.
“Now, the situation is grave. The government needs people’s support to eliminate drug and poppy cultivation menace. So, we support the 'war on drugs',” Nirmala also said.
