3 youths held in Manipur for trying to smuggle Covid drugs to Myanmar

Imphal, Aug 24: A local court in Manipur has remanded three youths to police custody till Friday for attempting to smuggle Covid-19 vaccines and other medicines to neighbouring Myanmar, police said on Tuesday.

A police official in Imphal said that Mohammad Feroz Khan, 30, Imran Khan, 22 and Shubham Kumar Anand, 23, were arrested on Sunday for trying to smuggle huge quantities of Covishield vaccine, Remdesivir and other medicines in a vehicle. Feroz and Imran are residents of Manipur while Shubham is a resident of Katihar district of Bihar presently staying in Imphal.

"The police led by Officer-in-Charge of Singjamei police station Inspector N. Jadumani Singh were conducting checking of passersby and vehicles in Canchipur area near Heijingang Super Market along National Highway-2, when the three youths were apprehended with the medicines and their vehicle and the contraband goods were seized," the official said. The detainees have confessed that the medicines were to be transported to Myanmar through the Moreh border.

Officials said that interrogation of the youths is on to find out the source of the seized medicines, vaccines and whether any more people are involved in the racket.

Highly addictive stimulant drugs mostly methamphetamine, foreign origin cigarettes, arms and ammunition and various other contraband are often smuggled from Myanmar which shares a 1,643 km unfenced border with four northeastern states -- Mizoram (510 km), Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km) and Nagaland (215 km).