Bhubaneswar, February 26 – In a major development, the Koraput Police on Thursday busted a temporary unit for manufacturing hashish oil across state lines and seized approximately 1,800 litres of oil worth around Rs 225 crore.
Following the receipt of precise and actionable intelligence regarding suspicious activities in the region, a raid was meticulously planned and led by the Superintendent of Police, Rohit Varma, of Koraput.
Acting swiftly on the information, a coordinated operation was launched in the dense forest area along the Jholaput Reservoir, under the jurisdiction of the Padua Police Station in Koraput, which is close to the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border.
To maintain complete operational secrecy and surprise the accused, the police teams avoided conventional road routes.
Instead, personnel moved 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.
"The remoteness of the area, the difficult terrain, the difficulty in reaching the site, and the quick assembly and disassembly of the manufacturing units were posing a big challenge for the police in carrying out successful raids in the past few days," the Koraput Police stated in an official statement.
During the raid, the police seized 1,800 litres of hashish oil with a market value of around Rs 225 crore and 1,000 kg of ganja worth Rs 5 crore.
Police sources claimed that the masterminds of the manufacturing unit have been identified, and efforts are underway to arrest the culprits soon.
The Koraput Police also found prima facie evidence that the accused persons operating the manufacturing unit have 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 the jurisdiction of the Nandpur Police Station.
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, over 62 kg of hashish oil was seized in two separate cases under the Chitrakonda Police Station in Malkangiri district of Odisha. Since ganja is bulky, its transportation is difficult and carries a higher risk of detection by security forces.
Therefore, 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.