Ranchi: As the harvesting season of poppy approaches, Jharkhand Police are busy carrying out massive destruction drives of the banned crop. In addition to this, the cops have launched a massive crackdown on opium traders who are mostly part of inter-state gangs.
On Thursday, Khunti Police seized opium from a trader whose brother is in jail in Uttar Pradesh for the same crime. Similarly, Ranchi Police have initiated steps for bringing an accused from Rajasthan for interrogation and trial.
Despite several preventive measures taken by the law enforcement authorities, poppy cultivation, according to police sources, is rampant across several districts as farmers earn four times the profit in growing poppy than in growing other crops like paddy. A mere kilogram of raw opium costs around Rs 50,000/kg.
The sowing of poppy crop begins in September while the harvesting takes place mid-March. The crops are generally grown on fields located beside rivers and in deep forests in order to avoid detection.
Farmers mostly grow this crop in Chatra, Ranchi and Khunti districts. Vast tracts of land in Chatra, which was once considered as the hub of poppy cultivation, are under opium cultivation. Chatra SP Rishab Jha said, “Operations against the cultivators are underway and so far, over five hundred acres of land under opium cultivation have been destroyed. We are also planning to distribute handbills in villages to discourage people from cultivating the crop.”
In Khunti district and in Namkum, Bundu and Tamar blocks of Ranchi there is unbridled cultivation of the crop, though, according to the police, the coverage is slightly less than previous years.
With the consumption of opium within the state being minimal, almost the entire produce is purchased by inter-state gangs who sell the products in western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Punjab.
Police said that the inter-state gangs usually take help from local miscreants for transporting the poppy products. Traders sometimes also come to Jharkhand on their own vehicles to make the purchase. Police are generally on the lookout for vehicles bearing registration numbers of other states. Khunti SP Ashutosh Shekhar said, “The inter-state agents become active during the sowing and the harvesting seasons in order to promote cultivation and purchase the harvested products respectively. Police have been trying to gather information about the gangs involved in the crime by interrogating people arrested with the products.”