Workers destroy poppy plants under the watchful eyes of police and excise department officials in Kaliachak on Wednesday. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, March 20: Excise department officials and police have discovered “hundreds of acres” of opium fields in Baishnabnagar, a day after they stumbled upon the illegal cultivation in adjacent Kaliachak.

The joint team today found poppy plants standing on miles of agricultural land.

“Although it is hard to estimate the area on which the poppy has been planted, it will run into hundreds of acres,” said Swapan Hazra, the Malda district superintendent of excise.

One acre equals to roughly three bighas.

Yesterday, the team had found a 77-bigha opium field in Kaliachak’s Mojampur village. The plants are being destroyed by workers hired by the excise department.

According to the excise department’s information, the illegal cultivation extends to Kaliachak, Golapganj and Baishnabnagar.

“We never knew that opium was being cultivated in the district on such a large scale,” said Hazra. “No one is willing to name the people who own the fields, so we have asked the district land and land reforms department to look for their identity.”

The excise superintendent said his department would destroy all the plants. According to police sources, the opium pods are smuggled into Bangladesh to be processed into heroin, which fetches a high price in the international market.

Hazra said if found guilty, the owners of these land could face imprisonment up to 10 years when tried under the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substances Act. “The cultivation of the opium poppy is internationally banned and only governments can grow it in their own farms to produce medicines from its derivatives.”

The inspector-in-charge of the Kaliachak police station, Sagar Saha, said he had information that drug buyers came to the area to collect the poppy. “We are keeping a watch on the area but it will be easier to locate them once the owners of the opium fields are identified,” he said.