More than 180,000 cannabis plants destroyed in Sarlahi's Chure hills
A joint Nepal Police and Armed Police Force team uprooted and destroyed more than 180,000 cannabis plants on over 35 bighas of land in the Chure region of Lalbandi Municipality, Sarlahi. Police said security agencies had cleared more than 70 bighas of illegal cultivation in the district's Chure belt and were investigating who grew the crop.
🇳🇵 Pratatol and Hattisudhe, Lalbandi Municipality-14, Sarlahi, Nepal
Plants destroyed
180,000
Area
5.6 ha
A joint team of the Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force destroyed illegal
cannabis cultivation on more than 35 bighas of land in the Chure region of
Lalbandi Municipality, Sarlahi.[1]The operation cleared cannabis planted on
15 bighas and 9 kaththas at Pratatol and Hattisudhe in Lalbandi Municipality-14.[1]Officers also destroyed large tracts of illegal cultivation at Dobhan Shir
and other nearby areas of the Chure hills.[1]The operation continued until
late Sunday evening.[1]
More than 180,000 cannabis plants were uprooted and destroyed.[1]Deputy
Superintendent of Police Saroj Rai, the information officer at the District
Police Office in Sarlahi, said the action was part of an ongoing anti-narcotics
drive against illegal drug cultivation in the district.[1]Rai said such
cultivation has been detected repeatedly in the Chure region.[1]
Rai said security agencies had by then destroyed more than 70 bighas of illegal
cannabis cultivation in the Chure belt of Sarlahi, and that the operation would
continue.[1]Police said further investigation was under way to identify those
involved in the cultivation.[1]
Photos and video
Photo published with The Himalayan Times report on the Sarlahi cannabis eradication. Photo: Prabhat Kumar JhaPhoto details
The article gives the day as Sunday, 21 December 2025, and was published on 22 December; no more exact time is given.
Areas are given in bighas and kaththas, traditional Nepali land measures; the hectare figure converts the 35-bigha total at about 0.16 hectares per bigha and is not a measured area.
The article does not break down how the remaining roughly 20 bighas beyond the 15 bighas and 9 kaththas at Pratatol and Hattisudhe were distributed between Dobhan Shir and other locations.
The count of more than 180,000 plants is a police estimate and is stated only as a minimum; no weight or value for the destroyed cannabis was published.
No arrests, charges or court action were reported, and police said the investigation to identify those involved was still under way.
The police figure of more than 70 bighas cleared in the Chure belt of Sarlahi is a running total for the ongoing drive, not a count for this operation alone.
The whole account rests on a single outlet report of the District Police Office statement; no second opened account of this operation was found.
Police arrested nine people for possessing illegal drugs in separate operations across seven districts of Nepal, the Central Police News Room said. Only one case involved cannabis: about 80 kg of ganja found with a 55-year-old man at Balan Khola in Siraha, while the rest turned up brown heroin, brown sugar or prescription medicines.
The Kathmandu Valley Police Office in Ranipokhari reported 444 drug-related cases and 378 arrests in the first three months of the fiscal year, mid-July to mid-October, part of a wider law-and-order campaign in the Valley. Its account named cannabis among the drugs seized but gave no weight for it, grouping it with heroin, pollen and nearly 296,000 ampoules and tablets.
Bhojpur District Police said on 21 June 2026 that a fiscal-year anti-cannabis campaign had uprooted 130,485 mature plants and 8,550 saplings, arrested 14 people and destroyed 1,556 kg of processed marijuana. Three were accused of cultivation and sale and 11 of transport and storage.
Arrested 14Charged 14Plants destroyed 139,035Cannabis 1.556 t
A joint Nepal Police and Armed Police Force team uprooted about 18,500 cannabis plants on roughly three and a half bighas of land at Pipal Damar in Ishworpur Municipality-12, Sarlahi, on 12 December 2025. Officers acted as the crop neared harvest, and local residents who grow cannabis there for income disputed how the drives are run.
