Police weed out ganja farms in three villages in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: Coimbatore District (Rural) Police busted ganja plantations in three villages on Thursday, the second day of the state-wide Ganja Vettai 3.0 crackdown.

A senior police officer said, “Information about the drive was not made public, unlike the two previous occasions, as we wanted to strike at the sources. The operation  was carried out covertly across the state based on alerts from sources.”

According to the police, following a tip-off about ganja cultivation in the forests near inter-state borders, a team led by Superintendent of Police V Badrinarayanan and Periyanaickenpalayam police inspector N Damodaran conducted raids on Wednesday and identified a plantation at Pasumani, a tribal village on Palamalai hills near Periyanaickenpalayam, belonging to P Chellan (63). The personnel destroyed around 300 ganja plants weighing 5 kg and arrested four persons from the village for cultivating ganja in an agricultural field. The arrested people were identified as Chellan, his son C Velusamy, A Palanisamy (53), and his son P Rajappan (33). All are residents of Pasumani.

On the second day of raids on Thursday, police found another plantation at Kunjurpathi village and destroyed 6.4 kg of ganja plants. A couple, Nanjan (60),  Malarkodi (45), and their son, Arunkumar (25), were arrested. Similarly, the team conducted a raid in Dhumanur village in Anaikatti hills and identified ganja cultivations there. Around 17 kg of ganja was weeded out and two people, Raman (55) and Perumal (62), were arrested.

The Naxalite Special Division (NSD) of Coimbatore rural police, forest department officials, and revenue department staff took part in the rauds. Sources said the accused were planning to sell the contraband in Attapadi in Palakkad district. Preliminary inquiry revealed that they had already sold a few kilos of ganja.