Police have destroyed over 1,000 acre of poppy plantation in three districts — Ranchi, Khunti and Chatra – since the beginning of this year in a bid to put a check on the smuggling of opium, a banned narcotic which is harvested in the month of March, officials spearheading the campaign said on Tuesday.
Khunti police have arrested around eight opium smugglers and destroyed around 600 acre of poppy plantation this year, Khunti Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Shekhar said. However, police teams in the district were also focusing on spreading awareness about the adverse effect of opium cultivation and subsequent consumption among youths by distributing pamphlets among villagers, Shekhar added.
“We have been running regular campaigns to destroy illegal poppy cultivation, but we also realise that it is equally important to ensure that villagers know about the consequences of poppy cultivation and do not support the cultivators and smugglers,” said Shekhar.
Opium is mostly cultivated in the far-flung villages of Khunti, Ranchi and Chatra districts in order to keep the fields away from the sight of the law enforcement agencies, said police sources, adding that the opium produced in Jharkhand was mostly smuggled to other states and hardly consumed at a local level.
A DSP rank official, who has been a part of the police campaign against opium cultivation and trade in Ranchi, said that some villagers were often tempted to cultivate opium due to the high monetary returns it gave. “Usually, one kilogram of opium could be sold for around Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000. No other crop gives such high returns to farmers,” he said, requesting not to be named.
“Opium produced here is mostly smuggled to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and parts of Punjab. Our aim is to not only check the cultivation but also bust the interstate rackets involved in the illegal trade,” he said.
On the road to the harvest season of opium, police in Ranchi and Khunti have stepped up vigil on the highways and are on the lookout for local peddlers as well as members of interstate drug rackets. Ranchi Superintendent of Police (Rural), Naushad Alam Ansari said that the police will run extensive campaigns against opium trade and cultivation across the district throughout the month of March.
“We are obviously keeping an eye on suspects and also planning raids in the interiors,” said Ansari. Former Director General of Police (DGP), MV Rao had clearly stated in January that destroying opium cultivations across Jharkhand was one of the key priorities of the state police. Officials from the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) have also admitted that opium and marijuana cultivated in Jharkhand was smuggled to Punjab and Haryana.