Delhi sees sharp rise in seizure of opium, poppy heads

With a sharp 23 per cent rise in recovery of illegal opium and 190 per cent in poppy heads in the national capital on 2015 over the previous year, Delhi Police are now tracking drug dealers who dump the opium residue here following rampant crackdown in Rajasthan and Punjab.
Opium and Poppy heads (the seed capsule of poppy) in India are largely sourced from the licit opium cultivation zone on the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border and some parts of Uttar Pradesh, said an official in the narcotic wing under Delhi Police's Crime Branch.
Large quantities of these were earlier directly routed to the rural areas in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh without using Delhi as a transit point as chances of getting caught here were higher. Besides, being more urban in nature, the city never had any demand for poppy heads as such, the official said.

He said the demand for poppy heads was declining over all, as the younger generation of addicts moving to chemical substances across northern India.
"But now it is feared that the dealers are dumping poppy products, including poppy heads, in Delhi because of rampant crackdowns in other north Indian states, especially Rajasthan and Punjab, and supplying it to migrant labourers here and the rural areas on the city's outskirts," he said.
The official said it is very important to keep a check on opium and poppy trade as they are further processed into heroin with the help of a chemical called acetic anhydride which, being a basic component in sedatives and painkillers, is not difficult to procure.

In 2015, Delhi Police recovered 519.60 kg of poppy heads as compared to 179.07 kg the previous year. Also, 48.610 kg of opium was recovered during the same period last year, against 39.50 kg in 2014, according to police records.