Opium on the sly

After Beed and Sangli, illegal opium farms were recently
busted in two villages of Shirur
taluka throwing light on the trade which may have been running for long. Partha Sarathi Biswas chronicles the chase.

Dens of poppy
Undulating vales covered with dried grass and not a single soul in sight — that’s how the approach road to the now infamous villages of Nharve and Vadagaon Rasai in the Shirur taluka appear to a first timer.

Thanks to the discovery of opium cultivation in two fields, these two sleepy hamlets have now assumed notoriety which they could have done without. The arrest of Satish Korekar of Nharve and Dattatreya Chavan of Vadgaon Rasai, for allegedly cultivating opium as an intercrop with onion had rattled Pune police, who now claim that there could be more such fields in the district.

Situated almost 15 km from the main Pune-Ahmednagar Road, the village of Nharve presented a picture of affluence associated with sugarcane cultivation and political clout. Korekar’s claim to fame is that a daughter-in-law from the house Manisha has been elected as a member of the Pune Zilla Parishad in the recent elections.

The neat courtyard, with the tall bamboos besides it, gave no clue of the dangerous crop they were guarding. The one-acre land, where the opium poppy was found, was shielded from all sides by the tall sugarcane crops. Surprisingly, the opium poppy was right at the courtyard of the house.

Refutable claims
Villagers claim that it was by mistake that the seeds of opium got planted. Both relatives of Korekar and Chavan point out how the seeds of onion and opium are similar and thus, often get mixed up. However, the police refute this reasoning as fallacious. Inspector Ashok Kshirsagar pointed out that any agriculturist worth his salt would be able to differentiate between the two just by touch.

“In Vadgaon Rasai, we came across 900 plants of opium poppy while in Nharve we uprooted 184 opium poppy plants. Also, the plants were planted in an organised manner, which belies all suggestions that they were planted by mistake,” he said.

Simultaneous finds
The discovery of opium poppy cultivation in Shirur Taluka, which is known for sugarcane cultivation, comes in the wake of similar finds in Satara, Sangli and Beed. Such finds have come as a shock to the police who now do not rule the existence of similar fields in other parts of the state.

Shielding poison
The spread of opium poppy crop, it seems, had started long ago in the state. Officers of the narcotics control board (NCB) had pointed out the decision of the government of Thailand to put the brakes on cultivation of opium and forcing farmers to change their crop pattern. The drying up of sources of opium poppy had forced the cartels to search for greener pastures.

The sugarcane field of Western Maharashtra has proved to be the ideal for such crops. To escape detection, the opium poppy is cultivated as an intercrop between the onion crops. Also, the recent finds of fields of opium poppy had detected that majority of the fields were either surrounded by tall crops of sugarcane or maize.

The catch
That opium poppy plants is not a new find for the villagers was evident from the fact that many of them talked about extraction of poppy seeds from the pods. “We use the poppy seeds (popularly called as khas khas), for preparation of delicacies during Diwali,” they said. Shirur, many villagers point out, is on the Pune-Ahmednagar road, which leads to Solapur. “Cultivation of opium poppy is a big thing in Solapur, and the seeds of the same are transported via Shirur. As the seeds look the same, they are often transported along with seeds of onion and thus some farmers end up cultivating the same,” the villagers claim.

However, many villagers did talk about the monetary benefits associated with the crop, which had lured them to cultivate it. “Even the dried stalks and leaves of the plant, are purchased by some people. Also the crop does not require much maintenance,” they say.

Opium poppy a rabi crop, is cultivated along with onion during the month of September-October. Many farmers in Shirur admitted of being involved in the cultivation for the past 10 years or so. The problems facing the opium cultivation in Thailand, Myanmar also had started almost 10 years ago.

Although, opium poppy cultivation has been in the known, hard core addiction to the drug has not widely reported in the area. Farmers had resorted to boiling the leaves and stalk of the plant in water and drinking it.

What’s next?
The finds of opium poppy being cultivated in the state, has come across as a shock to the police. The role of the revenue officials has come under the scanner, as none of the 7/12 land records report about the cultivation of opium  poppy.

The Pune collector Vikas Deshmukh, rattled by the spread of this cultivation, has ordered for a survey of the district to find out the exact spread of the crop.