Revenue officials and villagers involved in cannabis cultivation in the Banwas, Somghat, Thachi and Murah panchayats of the Bali Chowki tehsil destroyed the cannabis growing on 1,000 bighas, along with the standing maize crop, about three weeks before the Narcotics Control Bureau team arrived on 20 September 2005.[1] Villagers told the team they had cut the crop to avoid the anti-cannabis drive launched by the NCB and the Mandi police, and that the 1,000 bighas would have yielded charas worth Rs 1 crore.[1]
The NCB’s investigation found that revenue officials posted in the area had advised the villagers to destroy the crop to hide their own connivance in its cultivation, while charas mafias operating from inside and outside the area had encouraged villagers to grow it.[1] Mandi Additional District Magistrate Rajiv Shankar said his department had received no such reports and that no instructions to destroy the crop had been given to revenue officials in the area.[1]
The 34-member NCB and police team led by NCB Superintendent O.P. Sharma covered 25 km on foot and itself destroyed over 60 bighas of cannabis in forest areas including Bashiad, Bahan, Shalwar, Gar, Chalwar, Chua, Thach, Boong and Baghi.[1] A day earlier the same drive had destroyed over 60 bighas in the Thachi, Jehra and Nachan forest areas after covering over 20 km on foot.[2] Sharma said villagers had already destroyed their own crop in places after the arrest of the area’s main charas kingpin in an NCB-police operation the previous month, and estimated over 250 bighas remained under cannabis in the Jehra, Thachi, Nachan, Didar, Chamaj and Bong forests.[2]
Mandi Superintendent of Police Ajay Yadav said cases would be registered where cannabis was grown on private land.[2]
