Police in Orissa’s Rayagada district raided several villages and destroyed nearly 20,000 cannabis plants cultivated illegally in forest areas.[1] Excise Inspector Siba Prasad Gantayat said officers uprooted about 20,000 hemp plants and destroyed them in the presence of an executive magistrate.[1] He put the approximate value of the destroyed crop at Rs 20 million (two crore rupees).[1] The authorities suspected Maoists of being behind the cultivation.[1]
Police destroy 20,000 cannabis plants in Orissa's Rayagada
Police and excise officers raided several villages in Orissa's Rayagada district and uprooted about 20,000 illegally grown cannabis plants worth about Rs 20 million, in the presence of a magistrate. Officers suspected Maoists were behind the forest cultivation.
🇮🇳 Rayagada district, Orissa · India
- Plants destroyed
- 20,000
- Agency
- India
- Cannabis
- Living plants
- Case stage
- Under investigation
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
- Plants destroyed
- 20,000
- Value (official estimate)
- INR 20,000,000
- Agency type
- Regulator
- Cannabis
- Living plants (20,000 plants)
- Activity
- Cultivation
- Setting
- Forest or wild land
- Case stage
- Under investigation
Sources
- ANI (via TopNews)topnews.inOrissa authorities destroy cannabis plants worth 20 million rupees
Open questions the AI reported
- The ANI wire gives no separate date for the raids; 31 December 2009 is its publication date.
- Only the ANI wire account, as reprinted by TopNews, could be reopened; no second outlet's version was recoverable.
- The reports name no arrests, charges or the villages raided.
- No photograph of the destruction with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
