Cooch Behar police have destroyed illegal cannabis grown on 6,000 bighas in the district in the past three months and will continue with the drive to curb the rising trend of farming this contraband across the district.

“From October 2021 to Saturday, cannabis plants spread over an area of 6,126 bighas (2021.58 acres) have been destroyed by teams of different police stations. We will continue with the drive,” said Kumar Sunny Raj, the additional superintendent of police of Cooch Behar.

Sources said around 60 cannabis plants can grow on one cottah, which means that in one bigha, around 1,200 such plants can be cultivated.

“This means police have destroyed around 73.50 lakh cannabis plants. The drives have been carried out in nine of 13 police stations of the district which indicates many farmers are into this illegal cultivation,” said a retired cop.

A farmer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said cannabis cultivation was lucrative. Around 50 lakhs to one crore can be earned by selling the cannabis harvested from a bigha of land, he said.

Cough syrup seizure

Acting on a tip-off, a team of Dinhata police in Cooch Behar intercepted a truck and two pick-up vans on Saturday midnight and seized 150 cartons of cough syrup concealed in all three vehicles.

“We suspect the cough syrups were brought from outside and were supposed to be smuggled to Bangladesh,” said a police officer. Five persons, including two residents of Uttar Pradesh, have been arrested in this connection.