Poppy is used to make narcotics – opium, brown sugar and heroin. It is big business in West Bengal’s #Malda district, involving big money and big names, where a lakh-strong mob set fire to the local police station in #Kaliachak block earlier this month.
As NDTV reported:
Poppy is allegedly grown on 12,000 bighas in Malda, sources say. The money involved is huge.
At Domaichak, barely 20 km from the Kaliachak police station, at least half-a-dozen tractors are destroying poppy grown over 25 bighas of land. The operation is being conducted by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the Border security Force (BSF) and the local police.
If you visit Birbhum district in West Bengal you will find illicit poppy fields located 2 km from Dubrajpur police station itself. The discovery of unbelievably vast stretches of illicit poppy in West Bengal’s Nadia and Murshidabad districts in 2007 shone the spotlight on illicit poppy cultivation. These were around the villages of Choto Chandghar, Kulgachi, Choto Nolonda, Boro Nolonda and Beur. In the crop year 2006-07 poppy cultivation was concentrated in Murshidabad and Nadia. In 2008-2009 it shifted to Malda, Uttor Dinajpur and Dokhin Dinajpur.
Along with other illegal activities like smuggling of fake Indian currency notes and illegal arms, poppy cultivation remains an open secret in Malda.
“It is true that the region is an epicentre of illegal drug trade and a counterfeit currency racket because of its strategic location along the international border,” West Bengal director general of police, Intelligence Branch, Raj Kanojia told Mail Today.
Local officials say the Kaliachak violence on January 3 was a pre-planned attack under the garb of protesting against hate speech. More than 35 vehicles were torched, government properties ransacked and the Kaliachak police station set on fire.
“The entire violence was carried out to terrorise the local administration which is trying to crack down on the poppy empire, take revenge against the police and destroy crucial evidence at the police station,” a police official said, requesting anonymity.
Were the riots orchestrated by the drug mafia under the grab of communal violence to burn down the records at the Kaliachak police station?
The Malda violence occurred just days after the Pathankot attack and both under the grim shadow of the international drug mafia, and it is high time the Indian investigating agencies understand the modus-oprendi of how this trade operates for an effective response. Almost unseen, a drug storm is blowing across India. Vast stretches are turning into hubs of home-grown heroin at shocking speed.
@Vidyut I have no idea—didn’t even know there was a Malda drug mafia @GreatGameIndia
— Praveen Swami (@praveenswami) January 15, 2016
The NIA team has learned from the Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh’s interrogation that he used to get paid in diamonds for every drug consignment smuggled across the border. Singh’s jeweller friend Rajesh Verma was a regular at these expeditions just so that he can verify the authenticity of the stones.
For last 20 years the method of payment for narcotics shifted increasingly from Gold and Silver to Diamonds. Right now with the objectives of terrorist organizations, geo-political players seamlessly merging together to settle accounts, diamond traders, arms dealers join hands to sell their weapons to various groups it became impossible to face the narcotic monster even by armies as was evident in Latin America.
With more and more deadly addictives like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy entering Indian markets the number of addicts and the lure of profits is shooting through the roof. With no central drug policy to prosecute, with no stringent punishments to prevent, with no leader bothering about the future of Indian youth, different state police forces are grappling with this new menace of Narcotic Terrorism with their over stretched duties and understaffed personnel. With no co-ordination from central intelligence forces in understanding this narcotic menace and with suppliers embedding their interests to mainstream political parties the state police forces are clueless and directionless, though if understood they can tackle the issue effectively.
Don’t forget to read these exclusive GreatGameIndia reports connecting the Pathankot Attack to the International Drug Mafia stretching from Afghanistan via Pakistan to India from where it is shipped off to Dubai and Europe, that later was picked up by the mainstream media and now with an official inquiry launched to probe it – Pathankot Attack & The International Drug Trade
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