Around 20 quintals of poppy husk worth Rs 70 lakh and two mobile phones were seized from a truck on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday at Taimara on NH-33 under Dassam Falls police station area on the fringes of Ranchi, about 45km from the district headquarters.

Ranchi SSP Kuldeep Dwivedi had received a tip-off that a truck, bearing a registration number of Uttar Pradesh, was carrying a huge consignment of poppy husk.

Bundu SDPO K.V. Raman along with Dassam Falls police station in-charge Dinesh Toppo and cops of special operation group were pressed into action.

"The truck, which was carrying the consignment from Khunti district, was intercepted near Taimara. The driver and other occupants of the truck managed to escape. We recovered poppy husk packed in 80 gunny bags," the Bundu SDPO said. Ranchi police have got in touch with their UP counterparts to identify the owner of the truck.

Dwivedi said the two mobile phones belonged to the driver and cleaner of the truck. "We are retrieving data from them," he added.

"Till now, the exact source and destination of the truck is not known. But the consignment was certainly meant for a market outside Jharkhand. We have tracked some suspicious elements who act as middleman between inter-state smuggling groups," he said.

Opium cultivation takes place on a large scale in Khunti, Latehar, Garhwa, Chatra and Palamau districts during December-April. Drug syndicates, which are quite active in Khunti, supply opium to Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

Till March, Khunti police have destroyed 1,503 acres of poppy cultivation in 40 villages besides confiscating around 20kg processed opium.