2 nabbed for extortion, promise for govt job
Two individuals were arrested on charges of extortion for promising jobs in the state food and supplies department.
Ganja cultivation which had once flourished in Angul district over hundreds of acres of land have disappeared this year due to consistent police and excise crackdown for last several years. Police and excise department officials so far in the season have destroyed cannabis cultivation over 54 acre of land.
Last year ganja grown over 112 acre of land was destroyed. In previous year total land where ganja there was 129 acre of land, according to excise department. District collector Anil Kumar Samal, in the meanwhile, called a high level meeting of all sarpanchs and divisional forest officers in the district to search and locate more areas where the illegal cultivation is taking place.
He asked DFOs to direct rangers and also to sarpanches to help detect such areas. Police and excise officers should scan the district, he said. According to H C Sethy, the excise superintendent, ganja cultivation is taking place in areas like Chhendipada, Jarapara, Nisha, Handappa, Purunagarh and Purunamote police station areas.
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The inaccessible hilly areas are ideal for such illegal cultivation . Sethy said they have not found any link between the cultivation and left wing extremists in the area. Asked about the decrease in cultivation of hemp, Sethy said people were earlier ignorant of the law. The massive crackdown and imprisonment of several people has had an impact, he noted.
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