Bhubaneswar, Feb 26 (IANS) In a major development, the Koraput Police on Thursday busted an interstate hashish oil manufacturing temporary unit and seized 1,800-litres of oil worth around Rs 225 crore.

Following the receipt of precise and actionable Intelligence inputs regarding suspicious activities in the region, a raid was meticulously planned and led by Koraput Superintendent of Police, Rohit Varma.

Acting swiftly on the information, a coordinated operation was launched in the dense forested stretch along the Jholaput Reservoir under Padua Police Station limits in Koraput, situated close to the Odisha–Andhra Pradesh border.

To maintain complete operational secrecy and surprise the accused people, the police teams avoided conventional road routes.

Instead, personnel advanced discreetly by boats across the reservoir and subsequently trekked on foot through the jungle terrain to reach the targeted site.

Koraput Police sources stated that the strategic decision to approach through the waterway and forest pathways was aimed at concealing the movement of the force and preventing any possible alert to the accused drug peddlers.

“Remoteness of the area, tough terrain, difficulty to reach and quick assembly and disassembly of the manufacturing units were posing a big hurdle in successful raids by police in the past few days,” informed the Koraput Police in an official statement.

During the raid, the police officials seized 1,800 litres of hashish oil with a market value of around Rs 225 crore and Ganja weighing 1,000 kgs worth Rs 5 crore.

Police sources claimed that the masterminds of the manufacturing unit have been identified and efforts are on to arrest the culprits soon.

The Koraput Police also found prima facie evidence regarding the accused persons operating the manufacturing unit having links with drug peddlers outside the state.

In another separate raid in Koraput district, police arrested four accused persons, including two interstate smugglers from Haryana, in connection with the seizure of 1,143 kg of ganja worth over Rs 5 crore under Nandpur Police Station limits.

Police sources said that two of the arrested persons are suppliers from Semiliguda in Koraput, while the other two are receivers from Haryana.

It is worth mentioning that earlier hashish oil over 62 kgs was seized in two separate cases under Chitrakonda Police Station in Malkangiri district of Odisha. As ganja is bulky its transportation is difficult and carries a higher risk of detection by the security forces.

So, the drug peddlers are now increasingly adopting new strategies, such as processing ganja into hashish oil and transporting smaller quantities of the high-value contraband. Notably, the market value of one litre of hashish oil is nearly 25 times higher than that of one kilogram of ganja, prompting criminals to manufacture and traffic hashish oil in pursuit of higher profits.

–IANS

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