Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday, 26 June 2026, publicly commended Sribhumi Police for intercepting a drug consignment valued at ₹10.8 crore during an overnight operation, with one person apprehended and a manhunt under way for the remaining accused.

Context

Posting on X under the hashtag #AssamAgainstDrugs, Chief Minister Sarma wrote that '₹10.8 crore is a heavy price to pay for crossing paths with Assam Police,' extending kudos to the district unit for the interception. The post confirms one arrest while noting that the search for additional suspects is ongoing.

The operation, carried out overnight, is among the larger single-seizure actions credited to a district-level unit in recent months, underscoring the scale of narcotics trafficking that continues to flow through the state.

Policy Backdrop

Since taking office in 2021, Chief Minister Sarma has anchored his governance agenda on the 'Assam Against Drugs' campaign, directing sustained enforcement under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. The campaign has driven a marked rise in seizure volumes and arrests across the state.

Assam sits on established transit corridors for synthetic drugs and heroin moving from Myanmar into the Indian mainland. Successive state governments have treated narcotics control as a core law-and-order priority, but the present administration has further linked enforcement drives to broader North-East coordination through the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) platform that Sarma convenes.

Stakeholders and Impact

Sribhumi district, a border-adjacent region, has emerged as a focal point for interdiction efforts. The overnight operation reflects the operational tempo that district police units are now expected to maintain under the state's anti-narcotics framework.

Drug networks operating through Assam's transit corridors stand directly exposed to escalating enforcement pressure, while the state's youth — repeatedly cited by the Chief Minister as the primary victims of the drug trade — remain the stated beneficiaries of these drives. Civil society groups working on rehabilitation have noted that enforcement surges must be paired with demand-reduction programmes to produce lasting results.

What's Next

The hunt for the remaining accused in the Sribhumi case is the immediate operational priority for state police. A successful conclusion could reveal supply-chain links that investigators may use to target upstream networks.

Assam Police headquarters is expected to issue further updates on arrests and any follow-up seizures in the coming days. Given the Chief Minister's pattern of publicly amplifying enforcement milestones, additional announcements tied to the #AssamAgainstDrugs campaign are likely as investigations progress.