Kolkata:
Illicit poppy cultivation in the border districts of West Bengal and smuggling
of the contraband across the border to Bangladesh and elsewhere are worrying
intelligence authorities because it has turned out to be among the principal
sources of funds for terror outfits like the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.
CID
sources told PTI that the strategic position of these districts facilitated
rise in illegal cultivation of poppy, which “has become a major fund generating
business drawing several hundreds of youths into it”.
Apart
from Malda district’s Ratua, Kaliachak and Baishnabnagar, poppy is also
allegedly secretly grown at Nowada and Beldanga in Murshidabad district besides
Dubrajpur, Ilambazar and Kankartala in Birbhum district.
Such
cultivation was also found in Patrasayar, Indas, Onda and Barjora in Bankura
and Ketugram, Mangolkote, Kaksa, Purbasthali, Katwa, Galsi and Laodaha in
Burdwan, sources said. “Much evidence is there that the money earned from
this cultivation goes to the terror groups through different channels including
hawala. The money might have also gone to suspected ISIS agents through JMB,”
source said.
According
to a Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) report compiled in 2011-2012, the agency
had destroyed poppy crops cultivated in around 714 acres of land in the state,
out of which 711 acres lay in the Malda district while the other three were in
Hooghly and Burdwan districts.
The
CID source said that illegal poppy cultivation had spread to villages on the
zero line where the Border Security Force had almost no reach. According
to him, the link between FICN and poppy was helping the growth of terror
networks in the state.
The
youths involved in illegal poppy cultivation are also being used in
drug-peddling, besides smuggling fake currency. According to the source,
there is a close connection between the fake currency rackets and cultivators
of illegal poppy in the state.
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