Jaipur: In a major crackdown on ganja cultivation in Rajasthan, the Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF), in collaboration with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), destroyed an illegal ganja crop worth around Rs 20 crore spread across nearly 50 bighas in Udaipur district.Inspector general of police (ANTF) Vikas Kumar said that teams from the newly formed ANTF, working closely with the NCB, conducted multiple coordinated raids in Kauda-Mauda, Mandwa, Nichli Subri, and Uplathla in Udaipur. According to Kumar, drug traffickers cultivated more than 8,000 ganja plants across 50 bighas of land, using the remote tribal region as a base. “Illegal cultivation was taking place for several years, and the traffickers were preparing to supply the produce to western and southern Rajasthan, northern Gujarat, and Punjab ahead of New Year’s Eve,” he said. The operation was planned after months of surveillance and field intelligence. ANTF officials said that while earlier investigations linked large-scale ganja supply in Rajasthan to states like Manipur, Telangana, and Odisha, the possibility of local cultivation was considered “inevitable.” Over three months, ANTF teams discreetly surveyed the region to locate the fields. One team posed as a water pipeline survey group, another as agriculture department supervisors collecting soil samples, a third as electricity linemen, and a fourth as officials measuring land for agricultural loans. Each unit independently verified locations of suspected cultivation and shared findings with the central command in Jaipur. Following analysis of the intelligence gathered, a pre-dawn raid was launched earlier this week. More than 100 police personnel, divided into four teams, carried out a guerrilla-style operation with the assistance of half a dozen local police units and three NCB teams. “Acting on precise intelligence, our teams destroyed the fields used for illegal ganja cultivation. This was Rajasthan’s biggest action against cannabis cultivation so far,” Kumar said. Officials added that the search and destruction operation is still continuing, and additional plots are being identified for verification.
