Poppy straw worth ₹5 cr seized, 3 held
The Barmer police seized poppy straw worth ₹5 crore on Tuesday night and arrested three people under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
The husk, locally called doda or doda chura, was being illegally transported from Jodhpur to Sanchore town in Jalore district in a truck, hidden under sacks of wheat flour, the police said.
Poppy straw, which has a low morphine content, is the husk left after the opium has been extracted from the pods.
Police also seized a car that was escorting the truck containing the banned narcotic. “We got a tip-off about the consignment on Tuesday night and put up barricades. The truck was stopped near Kalyanpur police station. During a search, the police found doda hidden under wheat flour,” said Barmer superintendent of police Manish Agarwal.
The officer said 980 kg doda was seized from the truck and arrested the driver Shivram Jat. Two others, Hanuman Ram and Damaram Jat, were arrested
BARMER:
from the car.
The Centre banned the sale of poppy straw, also called lanced poppy husk (LPH), from licensed vends in April 2016. It was earlier given to addicts who had permits to use it. The state held detoxification camps for doda addicts before the ban came into effect. The use of doda use is prevalent mostly in western Rajasthan.
There’s been a surge in illicit doda traffic since the ban. The Barmer police alone registered 94 cases under the NDPS Act between April 2016 and April 2017 and seized 10,000 kg of the drug with a street value of ~50 crore.