Authorities in the eastern Indian state of Orissa blamed Maoist rebels for financing their insurgency with marijuana grown over huge tracts of Malkangiri district, the news agency India News reported in January 2005.[1] Police reported massive cultivation in at least eight villages in the Chitrakonda and Kalimela blocks, considered strongholds of rebels who had operated from the forests of Orissa and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh for years.[1] District police chief Jani Koil said his force had arrested 41 people and seized 27 quintals of ganja, about 2,700 kg, over the past weeks.[1] Koil said villagers feared the Maoists would kill informers, so police got too little information to arrest many growers.[1]

Rebel financing

An anonymous official said tribal farmers grew the crop and shared much of the revenue with the Maoists, whose growing funds were becoming a headache for the authorities.[1] At least 500 families in the Gunthawada and Nalagunthi village councils alone depended on marijuana cultivation, financed by smugglers from Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh who supplied seeds, equipment and cash advances.[1] Koil said raids and arrests never stopped the cultivation and trade, which the country’s anti-narcotics laws punish as offences.[1]