It is fairly well known that there is no limit to human greed, and that bad apples are liable to turn up almost everywhere. But it was still a shock to see a lieutenant-colonel of the Indian Army arrested for his role in a sinister international drug smuggling racket.
It may take a while for details to trickle in from Manipur, but the evidence so far is alarming enough: with prescription drugs being transported towards neighbouring Burma. In trying to brazen it out by pretending their convoy had an Army escort, the smugglers’ gang may have given the game away. The most worrying aspect is that the Army plays a critical role in the Northeast, both in tackling insurgency and securing a porous international border. No wonder alarm bells started ringing at Army HQ.
A thorough probe is vital, not only into the smuggling that has been detected, considerable though the haul appears to be in terms of the international value of such narcotics that are abused for recreational purposes, but also into whether defence personnel are engaged in similar dangerous anti-national activity in other parts of the country. The real fear is that it is not just smuggling that is going on (maybe to correct imbalances in supply and demand in such areas for drugs that are not simply medicinal), but that this might be a smokescreen under which the nation’s security is being endangered. Mercenaries can’t be allowed to operate in key sensitive areas of strategic importance.