In Maharashtra, strange case of missing pomegranates leaves farmers clueless

Coordinated thefts of large quantities of these large-sized high-value pomegranates were reported across Maharashtra — from Sangola in Solapur district to Shrirampur in Ahilyanagar and Deola in Nashik — in July and August this year.

The reason, police and farmers say, is clear: Soaring prices of this fruit.

The Bhagwa pomegranate is celebrated as the jewel of Indian varieties — an opulent fruit with a rich saffron-red rind and deep ruby-coloured aril, which is the juicy sac that encases the seed. While the FIR registered in the Shindodi case values the fruit at Rs 100 per kilo, pegging the total value of the stolen fruit at Rs 4.5 lakh, the Walunj family is sure that the fruit would have fetched Rs 200 per kilo wholesale and Rs 300 per kilo in retail.

“The yield was seven months old when it was stolen and ready to be harvested. Seven months of hard work and care by my family, and investment of time and money, was behind it. The night of July 1, all the trees were studded with fruits; the next morning, the best fruits were gone,” says Walunj, the farmer.

“This year, pomegranate prices in wholesale and retail markets rose to almost double last year’s rates, reaching their highest point in several years. The surge is due to a drop in supply caused by untimely and heavy rains, subsequent disease outbreaks and disrupted flowering cycles that reduced both yield and quality. At the same time, demand for premium-grade fruit has risen, and higher input, transport and market costs have further pushed prices upwards,” says Walunj’s nephew, Rushikesh, an engineering graduate.

“There is a major difference between the per-kg price of fruits of 150g each and more than 350g each. Those who stole the ready-to-harvest fruits from our 750 trees knew which fruits to pluck, the larger ones. It shows that those who executed the coordinated theft knew the business. The fruits that were stolen could have fetched Rs 180-200 per kg in the wholesale market in retail and even more on home delivery apps in cities,” says Rushikesh.

At Hatid village of Sangola taluka in Solapur, Altaf Mulla, a 39-year-old pomegranate farmer recalls that he woke up on a “cloudy morning” in July to find that all of his 300 trees were stripped of their prime-quality fruits. “I lost three tonnes of the best-quality Bhagwa pomegranate. I had never heard of a theft like this in my life. From that night, we started doing ‘rakhan’  (community patrol) with neighbouring villagers, making rounds of the area till the time fruits were harvested. We were selling the pomegranate at Rs 300 per kg in the market when it was stolen. In one night, I lost Rs 8-9 lakh. Who will compensate for this loss?” Altaf asks.

While there is no official data on these thefts, local news reports and half-a-dozen police cases suggest that at least 15 instances of pomegranate theft of quantities of over two tonnes have been reported from Pune, Nashik, Ahilyanagar and Solapur over July and August.

According to the farmers, the areas targeted by the thieves are also badly affected by a human-leopard conflict.

Satish Kundalik Jadhav (41), from Dighi village in Shrirampur taluka who lost 3.5 tonnes of fruit “worth Rs 7 lakh” overnight in July, says, “After losing the majority of crop to thieves, our night vigil was also terrifying because of the presence of leopards. There are always one or two leopards hiding in the pomegranate orchard,” says Jadhav. The Walunj family in Shirur also reported several leopard sightings.

These farmers point out that the thefts happened with less than a week to harvest when wholesale traders from other parts of Maharashtra and states such as Jharkhand, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh had visited the area with their teams of labourers.

With no major breakthrough in their investigation so far, the police believe that “large gangs” are behind these thefts. According to Pune Rural police, two such cases of theft were registered in July at Shirur, leading to one arrest so far.

Inspector Sandesh Kenjale, in-charge of Shirur police station, said, “We have observed that when onion prices soar, thefts of harvested and stored onions rise. The same has happened to pomegranates. We have reasons to believe that these thefts were executed by large gangs with an understanding of the crop and its market. We have arrested one suspect but we are still probing some clues to nab these gangs.”