Poppy plants spread in an area measuring more than 30 acres were destroyed during a special drive conducted by a joint team of Ranchi and Khunti Police on the bordering areas of the two districts on Thursday. Police said that action will be taken against the landowners after identifying them.
“Today itself more than 30 acres of poppy cultivation was destroyed involving Ranchi and Khunti Police during the special drive being conducted since the last one month,” said Rural SP Rajkumar lakra. More than 100 policemen were involved to destroy the poppy cultivation using sticks and bamboos, he added.
“Poppy fields were later put to fire in order to destroy the cultivation completely,” said the SP.
Poppy plants in more than 1,200 acres of land have already been destroyed in Ranchi and Khunti during the last one month and the drive will continue till all of it is not destroyed after identifying them, added the SP.
The SP said that the cultivation is generally funded by somebody else and locals due to the lack of awareness agree to cultivate poppy in the greed of more money.
“We are also trying to find out the financers who will also be booked for producing poppy illegally along with the landowners,” the SP said.
“As most of the people living in the remote areas are unaware of the repercussions of poppy cultivation, they need to be made aware of it,” said lakra. Several awareness programmes though ‘nukkar nataks’ and short films are being conducted in the remote areas, which needs to be intensified in such areas, he said.
Additional SP Operations RC Mishra said the cultivation was being done in the remote areas where there is no movement of police.
“The concerned Police Station will further investigate and identify if it was being done in ‘rayyat’ land and then take action against them,” said Mishra. Besides Ranchi, seven districts of Jharkhand are badly affected by the problem of illegal poppy cultivation which includes Chatra, latehar, Palamau, Bokaro, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, and the Singhbhum.