Prithvipur police arrested a 62-year-old man during a raid on an illegal cannabis plot in Naktena Khirka, near Biraura hill, in Niwari district of Madhya Pradesh.[1] Police said the man admitted in questioning that he grew and traded cannabis together with the field’s owner.[1] The field’s registered owner is a fugitive co-accused, and police said teams had been sent to arrest him.[2]

Officers seized about 200 green cannabis plants, dried cannabis and seeds with a combined weight of 45 kg 450 g.[1] According to Dainik Bhaskar, the haul came from a one-bigha field and included about 1 kg of dried cannabis and 7 kg 920 g of cannabis seeds.[2] A bigha is a local land measure of roughly 0.25 hectares, the unit Bhaskar used to describe the plot.[2]

Police valued the seized cannabis at about 40,000 to 50,000 rupees.[1] The raid followed a tip-off to the Prithvipur station house officer about cannabis being grown and dried cannabis being sold at the spot.[2] The operation was carried out on the directions of Niwari superintendent of police Rai Singh Narvariya, and police registered a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.[1] Police were preparing to produce the arrested man before a court and said the investigation would establish who else was involved in the trade and how long it had run.[2]