NCB, ITBP and Himachal Police Launch Crop-Destruction Drive in Kullu's Cannabis Belt

A joint federal-state operation is uprooting illegal cannabis plantations in Kullu's high-altitude villages as part of a national anti-narcotics push announced this year.

FILE — police lights · Tony Webster / CC BY-SA 2.0

Joint Operation Targets Kullu's Charas Belt

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), working alongside the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Himachal Pradesh Police and the state Forest Department, has begun destroying cannabis plants across remote, high-altitude parts of Kullu district, according to The New Indian Express. The outlet reported the operation began on a Friday but did not specify the calendar date, so the exact start date could not be independently confirmed. The drive targets an area long associated with illegal cultivation and charas production.

Geo-Tagging and Legal Follow-Up

Teams are geo-tagging the plantations they clear so any future regrowth can be tracked, the outlet reported. Amanjit Singh, Additional Director of NCB's Chandigarh Zone, was quoted in full by The New Indian Express: "A joint operation by NCB along with ITBP and other agencies is being carried out for the identification and destruction of illegal cultivation of cannabis plants, The joint teams are operating in difficult mountainous terrain. The entire exercise is being geo-tagged and documented through photographs and videography to ensure transparency, and the Forest Department shall issue the destruction certificate on conclusion of the campaign. Legal action under the NDPS Act, 1985 shall be initiated against persons found responsible for the cultivation." He added that the operation was ongoing, with more areas being mapped for clearance in the coming days.

A Known Hotspot

According to the New Indian Express, villages including Malana, Manikaran, Kasol, Tosh, Nathan, Pulga, Fozal and Banjar are longstanding centers of cannabis cultivation in the district, where residents reportedly grow the plant on forest and private land and extract charas by hand before it moves into wider trafficking networks. The paper cited unnamed sources saying the charas-extraction season in Kullu had already begun, with fresh product being prepared and stored. The NCB's 2023 report, cited by the same outlet, named Himachal Pradesh and Odisha as states where cannabis trafficking occurs in "substantial quantities," with product moving onward to Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Goa, Gujarat and other metropolitan markets, and identified Kullu specifically as a hotbed of illegal growing.

Part of a Broader Federal Push

The New Indian Express linked the Kullu drive to the Vision Document on Narcotics Control (2026–2029), released by Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the 10th Apex Level Meeting of the Narco-Coordination Centre in New Delhi on June 26, which calls for coordinated eradication of illicit cultivation between central and state agencies. The NCB also urged the public to report drug trafficking through the toll-free MANAS helpline (1933), promising informant confidentiality, the paper said. It is not the district's first large-scale clearance: the same report noted that in 2019, a coalition of state police, NCB, the India Reserve Battalion, revenue and forest departments and local community groups destroyed cannabis across 6,175 bighas — about 1,235 acres — of Kullu land over a two-month campaign running from August 6 to October 4.

Kullu's Wider Scrutiny

The crop-destruction drive follows separate friction in the district over nightlife enforcement. The New Indian Express reported that Himachal Pradesh's government transferred Kullu's Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police in August, after the state High Court ordered their removal on June 24 for failing to prevent large rave parties in the Parvati Valley's Kasol area. That case stemmed from an event at Green Forest-I and Green Forest-II in Grahan, near Kasol, held June 7–11, where two FIRs were filed after items including cannabis rolling papers and liquor bottles were found; two tourists were arrested with cocaine and LSD, and a Russian national, Caria Kuzminykh, who was performing as a DJ, died at the event, the outlet reported.

Broader Enforcement Pattern

The Kullu operation lands amid a wave of cannabis-related enforcement reported elsewhere in India in recent weeks. Separately, India Today reported that Kerala's Railway Police and Railway Protection Force intensified checks under "Operation Toofan" after seizing 34 kilograms of cannabis in a string of incidents, including 22 kg found on two men at Palakkad Junction, about 8 kg abandoned aboard the Tata Nagar Express, and 4 kg seized from a 19-year-old at Ernakulam Junction on September 17. State licensing and related-coverage records reviewed by this outlet also show recent cannabis seizures and crop busts in Rajasthan, Telangana, Maharashtra and Bihar, alongside a Times of India report of nine people sentenced to 10–20 years for smuggling 400 kg of cannabis — suggesting the Kullu clearance is one piece of a wider, simultaneous national crackdown rather than an isolated local action.

What to Watch

Whether the Kullu operation matches or exceeds the scale of the 2019 clearance remains unclear, as the NCB has not yet released acreage or plant-count figures for the current drive. The outcome of any NDPS Act prosecutions tied to the operation, and whether geo-tagging deters regrowth in future seasons, will likely determine how the campaign is judged against the government's 2026–2029 anti-narcotics targets.