Andhra police burn 200 tonnes of seized ganja in record destruction
Andhra Pradesh police burned more than 200,000 kilograms of seized ganja at Koduru village near Anakapalli on 12 February 2022, in what police called the largest single drug destruction in the country. The stock had been seized under Operation Parivartan, which also destroyed thousands of acres of cannabis crops on the Andhra-Odisha border.
🇮🇳 Koduru village, Anakapalli, Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh · India
Andhra Pradesh police set ablaze more than 200,000 kilograms of seizedganja in an open area at Koduru village in Anakapalli mandal on Saturday 12 February 2022, in what the force described as the largest quantity of drugs destroyed anywhere in the country in one go.[1][2]Director General of Police Gautam Sawang lit one of the heaps to start the event, organised with the Special Enforcement Bureau and the drug disposal committee, with fire-service and disaster-response personnel on standby and the press invited to watch.[2]
Parivartan campaign
The stock had been seized over the previous two years across Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam and East Godavari districts under Operation Parivartan, launched on 31 October 2021 to choke the supply side of the ganja trade on the Andhra-Odisha border.[1][2]Police said the operation had produced 1,363 cases and 1,500 arrests, including 562 accused from other states, and had destroyed 7,552 acres of cannabis plants between November 2021 and February 2022.[1][2]Police valued the burned stock at Rs 850 crore at the event.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
ANI quotes police valuing the destroyed stock at Rs 850 crore, while the Telugu360 account puts the same stock at Rs 500 crore; the report uses the police figure stated at the event.
ANI reports 7,552 acres of cannabis plants destroyed between November 2021 and February 2022, while Telugu360 reports 8,500 acres destroyed over fifteen months.
No breakdown of the burned stock by seizing district was published.
Police in Udaipur district uprooted and seized 779.79 kg of green ganja plants grown illegally in the hills at Khara Kupiya, Mandwa. Three NDPS cases were registered at Mandwa police station against three residents and investigation began.
Police destroyed 467 cannabis plants growing in a villager's house compound at Binayipur in Nabarangpur district, Odisha, and arrested him. The Nabarangpur police registered a case under the NDPS Act, and a sub-divisional police officer gave the account of the raid to reporters.
Sepahijala superintendent of police Bijoy Debbarma said joint police, Tripura State Rifles and BSF teams destroyed at least 1.5 crore ganja plants in Sonamura subdivision over the past year, causing an estimated Rs 1,000 crore loss to the illegal trade. He said the crackdown lay behind a 2 November attack on a BSF team at Ashabari, after which police have arrested 21 people.
Koraput district police and excise teams destroyed 30,000 cannabis plants in joint raids, 12,000 of them at Atal Guda in the Boipariguda block and 18,000 in the Nandapur block, the district superintendent of police said. Koraput police said the Nandapur destruction covered about nine acres of hilly land near Kasandi and Dabuguda.
