May 27, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24,1424

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PESHAWAR, May 26: The poppy production in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan surged with the cultivated area rising to over 20,000 hectares this year as the Afghan drug lords lured more farmers to grow the banned crop, a report released by a local NGO contended.

Sources confirmed that the Afghan drug barons, who purchased heavily from the local poppy growers, paid them lucrative amounts in exchange for for the crop besides motivating farmers in other parts of the province to grow the banned crop.

Attributing the surge in poppy production to insufficient taken by the law enforcement agencies, they said that the poppy crop had been sown in all of the seven tribal agencies, including areas, which had never been known to grow the crop.

The new areas, where poppy had been cultivated, included the Betani area, Tank, Kohat, Kohistan, Bisham, Swabi, Upper and Lower Dir, Mansehra, Thal and Diamer in the Northern Areas.

According to a report prepared by a local NGO, Environ Tech, the poppy crop was cultivated over an area measuring 20,000 hectares in the tribal belt and the NWFP.

The report, which was released recently by the NGO, stated that the government had contended that despite a sharp increase in poppy cultivation, the crop — used in the production of drugs like heroin and morphine — had been grown on over 7,726 hectares in the tribal areas this year.

The government records showed that in 1998-99, poppy had been cultivated over an area measuring 4,471 hectares, while in 1999-2000, it had been grown over 4,310 hectares.

The poppy cultivation, the government figures showed, had decreased in 2001-02, with poppy grown over an area of 2,776 hectares in the tribal belt and the NWFP.

Another source said that most of the poppy growers secretly sold opium in the Bajaur Agency, where its sale was strictly prohibited.

Growers in the Bajaur Agency were considered to be “experts” in extracting raw opium from the poppy buds, he said.

Farmers in the tribal areas, sources said, had acquired land on lease in the northern and southern Waziristan agencies as well as the Kunar province in Afghanistan at an average rate of Rs20,000 per kanal.

Sources in the remote Tera valley in the Khyber Agency, meanwhile, talked about a weekly bazaar held every Friday at Bagh in the Maidan area, where large quantities of opium and hashish were put on sale along with other items of daily-use.

They said that there were a considerable number of “factories” were operating along the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border, converting opium into heroin and morphine. The NGO’s report also criticised the government for insufficient measures to tackle the issue of poppy cultivation.

The report stated that the poppy production had surpassed the previous records and there was a danger that the province and tribal regions would regain their status as major poppy, opium and drug production centres.