JK among top states in poppy trade, police looks for reasons

By Irshad Khan

Srinagar, Mar 25: Jammu and Kashmir is among the leading states smuggling poppy husk on a large scale, official data revealed.

In just three years from 2015 up to January 2018, official figures showed that 16,347.34 kg quantity of poppy husk from J&K was seized by the central law enforcing agencies.

J&K as per the official figures is only behind Rajasthan, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and West Bengal in the poppy husk smuggling.

While 205051.13 kg of the drug was seized from Rajasthan in the last 3 years, official figures said that 111019.91 kg, 94060.75kg, 38774.88 kg and 32751.18 kg was seized from Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and West Bengal respectively in the said time period.

The figures have revealed that 14991.91 kg poppy husk was seized in the last 3 years from Uttar Pradesh.

Interestingly, J&K Police, which claims to run its own de-addiction centres in Kashmir and Jammu regions independently does not know the reasons behind the large-scale smuggling of the poppy husk from the state.

Director General of Police (DGP), S P Vaid said that the JKP had “waged a war” on drugs in the state. However, when asked about the reasons behind the large-scale smuggling of the poppy husk, the DGP said, “I do not know the reasons”.The JKP as per Vaid had seized “huge quantities (of drugs) during the last one year”.

“I hope we get cooperation from everybody,” he added.

Vaid said that the smugglers got away from legal prosecution “on technical grounds” because “Generally, there is no evidence as witnesses do not come forward”.

To mention, the DGP had recently said that drugs were a “bigger challenge” than fighting militancy in the state.

As per a recent news report, poppy husk or ‘phukki’ is the most common form of substance abuse in Jammu region.

Official figures show that in the last less than 3 years, poppy and cannabis (bhang) was cultivated on more than 13,000 kanals of land in Kashmir region valley alone with the law enforcing agencies claiming to have destroyed the plants.

Officials say that the cultivation base had seemingly shifted from south to north Kashmir.

The Central Government recently said that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had undertaken destruction of illicit poppy cultivation “on a regular basis”.