Police and excise burn 300 tonnes of cannabis across Phiringia villages
A joint police and excise team destroyed nearly 300 tonnes of cannabis plants worth over Rs 50 crore, grown across 20 sq km in 58 villages of Phiringia block in Kandhamal district. Two local sarpanchs were arrested for allegedly patronising the cultivation.
🇮🇳 Phiringia block, Kandhamal district, Odisha · India
A joint team of police and excise officials destroyed nearly 300 tonnes of cannabis
plants, worth more than Rs 50 crore, cultivated across 58 villages of Phiringia block
in Kandhamal district.[1]The crop covered about 20 sq km in three panchayats of the
block, where traders from outside the state used local tribals to grow hemp in dense
forest, according to official sources.[1]
Arrests and reaction
Two local sarpanchs were arrested for apparently patronising ganja cultivation in the
Kandhamal area.[1]The echoes of the raids reached the state assembly, where
opposition members alleged the crop was being grown with a minister’s knowledge.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
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.
