Mumbai Police seizes ganja worth Rs 5 crore grown in cotton field on Maharashtra-MP border

An officer from the Anti Narcotics Cell of the Mumbai police said they had arrested one Akash Chavan in August from Saki Naka in possession of marijuana. When they asked him where he procured the contraband from, he led them to Dhule where a man named Kiran Koli had given it to him.

The police then began looking for Koli and found his field in the Bhoiti village in Shirpur taluka of Dhule near the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh border. “The place is located in the interiors and hence the fields are used by some to grow the contraband. On the outside, they grow cotton and tur, which is the staple here, and inside they grow the contraband. We have seized marijuana worth nearly Rs 5 crores,” said inspector Rajendra Dahiphale.

Last month, the Dhule police too had combed a field and found marijuana being cultivated there. An officer said the place where marijuana is cultivated is away from the main city and the weather too is conducive for the growth of the contraband. Also, since it is at the border of two states, ganja is sent across the country from here.

An officer said constant action will have to be taken here in order to ensure the area does not become a hub like some places in the country like Ganjam district in Odisha, where action has been taken by law enforcement agencies in the past.