The Northeast of India, which shares borders with the infamous Golden Triangle, has increasingly become the decisive front in India’s battle against narcotics.
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The Northeast of India has increasingly become the decisive front in India’s battle against narcotics. Bordering the infamous “Golden Triangle”, the region has long been vulnerable to the spillover of transnational drug networks. Political instability in Myanmar, porous borders across Manipur and Mizoram, and the expansion of synthetic drug manufacturing in the neighbourhood have intensified this challenge. Over the past few years, seizures of methamphetamine tablets, heroin consignments, and precursor chemicals in states like Assam, Manipur and Mizoram have revealed both the scale of the problem and the persistence of trafficking corridors that link Southeast Asia to India’s heartland. This evolving situation has compelled New Delhi to treat the narcotics menace not just as a law-and-order issue but as a matter of national security, demanding tighter enforcement, cross-border cooperation, and technological innovation.
Concrete evidence from the ground illustrates the magnitude of this problem. In March 2025, the Narcotics Control Bureau’s Imphal Zone intercepted a truck near Lilong carrying over 102 kilograms of methamphetamine tablets, dismantling a cartel route that was exploiting the Moreh crossing. A month later, in Silchar, Assam Police and NCB Guwahati seized more than 30 kilograms of yaba tablets in a coordinated operation that also resulted in arrests. Mizoram has witnessed a series of high-value busts this year, with Assam Rifles and state agencies seizing consignments worth nearly 10 crore rupees in early July, followed by multiple hauls amounting to over 40 crore later that month. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has also intensified its presence in the Northeast, seizing 32 kilograms of methamphetamine tablets in January as part of operations. Far from being isolated incidents, these seizures reflect a pattern of persistent trafficking routes and an increasingly assertive institutional response.
This assertiveness has not come by chance. In the past six years, the Ministry of Home Affairs has undertaken a structural overhaul of India’s anti-narcotics apparatus, with a clear emphasis on the Northeast. The Narco-Coordination Centre (NCORD), has matured into the backbone of this response. It connects the apex level in Delhi to state governments and down to district forums, ensuring that intelligence, enforcement, and rehabilitation are coordinated rather than fragmented. Since its creation, thousands of NCORD meetings have been held, including regular district-level reviews in Charaideo and Sivasagar in Assam, Champhai in Mizoram, and Tirap in Arunachal Pradesh. These gatherings, once rare, have become routine, aligning enforcement drives, pharmacy checks, cultivation monitoring, and rehabilitation efforts under a common framework. The Home Ministry has also tightened its grip against narcotics control through data collection and analysis using platforms like the SIMS e-portal, NIDAAN, N-CORD portal and BISAG-N.
It is within this framework of Home Minister Amit Shah that the Northeast’s ground-level resilience has grown. The establishment of Anti-Narcotics Task Forces as single nodal points in every state has further ensured accountability, while the National Narcotics Helpline “MANAS” has connected ordinary citizens with enforcement and de-addiction support. The effect of these mechanisms is visible in the way seizures in Imphal, Silchar, and Champhai now feed into larger databases such as NIDAAN, which tracks offenders and links investigative dots across states. Enforcement no longer ends with confiscating consignments; it is tied to dismantling networks. This shift from fragmented policing to coordinated strategy reflects the Ministry’s recognition that the Northeast’s vulnerability cannot be addressed by episodic crackdowns but requires permanent institutional scaffolding.
Technology has played a crucial role in this shift. In 2022, directives were issued for NCB to share satellite imagery with northeastern states to identify cultivation zones. In Manipur, the use of remote sensing and targeted eradication campaigns has reduced poppy cultivation by almost 60 percent between 2021 and 2024, shrinking from nearly 28,600 acres to just over 11,000. Plans to expand drone-based eradication highlight how surveillance and technology are being leveraged in difficult terrains where human access is limited. These interventions are particularly important given the steady adaptation of trafficking networks, which often reroute through new corridors as enforcement pressure builds.
What also distinguishes the current approach is the recognition that India’s drug war cannot be won within its borders alone. Bilateral agreements with Myanmar and Bangladesh, along with India’s participation in multilateral forums, have been revitalised to align counter-narcotics operations with regional realities. With Myanmar’s political turmoil creating fertile ground for methamphetamine syndicates, this external dimension has become as vital as domestic policing. Enforcement agencies in Shillong and Aizawl have repeatedly flagged the influx of Myanmar-origin drugs into the region, and cross-border cooperation will remain critical to sustaining enforcement gains.
At the heart of these institutional and operational shifts has been the Home Ministry’s sustained attention to the Northeast during the past six-year tenure of Home Minister Shah. Rather than spotlighting personalities, the record points to institutions built and habits enforced over the past six years: NCORD wired from Delhi to the district, Anti-Narcotics Task Forces operationalised across states, and technology mainstreamed into everyday policing. The push has been multidimensional, spanning data-driven platforms such as SIMS, NIDAAN, the NCORD portal, and BISAG-N, as well as the establishment of a National Narcotics K9 Pool to strengthen ground-level enforcement. Alongside, India has signed MoUs with 46 countries to bolster global coordination, while a strict approach has been taken to crack down on the entire drug supply chain through network charting and mapping. Shah’s framing of the “Golden Triangle” as a “Death Triangle” captured the social cost of trafficking, but more importantly, practice followed rhetoric. The steady decline in poppy cultivation in Manipur, the frequency and scale of seizures across Mizoram and Assam, and the seamless coordination between central agencies and district police point to a grassroots strengthening that had been absent before.
As India looks ahead, the Northeast will remain the decisive theatre in the drug war. The region’s geography, porous borders, and economic vulnerabilities ensure that traffickers will continue to test the state’s resilience. Yet the lessons of the past six years show that sustained political will, cross-border diplomacy, and institutional consolidation can deliver measurable change. The challenge now is to keep the pressure consistent, pair enforcement with rehabilitation, and ensure that every seizure leads to the dismantling of entire networks. If that trajectory is maintained, the Northeast can shift from being the weakest seam in India’s drug defence to its strongest bulwark against the “Death Triangle.”
Bagmita Borthakur (PhD Research Scholar, BITS Pilani)