Battle-hardened security forces have another task at hand here: to crack the whip against illegal poppy farmers in the Kashmir valley.
SRINAGAR: Battle-hardened security forces have another task at hand here: to crack the whip against illegal poppy farmers in the Kashmir valley.
A special anti-narcotics cell has been formed by the government to launch a crackdown on the farmers and destroy the poppy crops across Kashmir.
“All the deputy commissioners are members of the newly formed cell. We will invoke stringent laws to book the farmers involved in the illegal cultivation,” Basharat Ahmad Dhar, divisional commissioner Kashmir who heads the cell, told DNA. All the revenue officials have also been instructed to prepare a database of the areas under the drug cultivation in Kashmir.
“Preliminary estimates say that around 1834 kanals of land is under bhaang cultivation in Anantnag. In Pulwama, the land under bhaang and poppy cultivation is 1290 kanals and 3970 kanals respectively. There are other areas in Baramulla and Kupwara where such activity is being carried out,” said Dhar.
Unofficial figures however say more than 10,000 kanals (20 kanals form one hectare) of land is under the cultivation of poppy, fucci, bhaang and charas in J&K. What has added another dimension to the whole cultivation process is the possible nexus between militants and poppy farmers in the Kashmir valley.
“Poppy cultivation is prevalent in areas which are infested by militants. These farmers may be paying protection money to the militants for carrying out such activities,” said Hemant Kumar Lohia, deputy inspector general of police, south Kashmir. To crack the whip on the drug smugglers across the country, J&K police is now sharing inputs with revenue intelligence to prevent the smuggling of the poppy and tighten noose around the illegal peddlers.
“We tipped revenue intelligence about the drug haul being smuggled from Kashmir recently. Around 28 quintals of fucci was later seized in Ahmedabad. Similarly, we tipped Jammu police which later seized a large quantity of charas from Samba,” said Lohia.
Police say around forty tones of charas/hashish are traded in the country of which four tones are seized by the law enforcing agencies annually. Fifty per cent of the remaining is smuggled out and rest being consumed in the country.
Police say the annual value of the unprocessed poppy cultivated in the state is around Rs five crore. “Its value increases by 10 times once it is processed,” said Lohia.
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