QUETTA: Personnel of the Frontier Corps (FC) have destroyed poppy crop cultivated over thousands of acres in Murgha Faqirzai area of Qilla Saifullah district.

According to official sources, local tribesmen had cultivated the crop over 1,988 acres in the Muslim Bagh sector, along the Afghan border.

“Around 200 FC personnel cordoned off the entire area and launched an operation for destroying poppy crop with the help of local people,” a senior Frontier Corps official said on Wednesday.

He said the operation was launched on Tuesday and completed on Wednesday.

The sources said that about 35 tractors were used for destroying the crop.

The FC has the powers to launch an operation to rid the areas of drugs and narcotics.

Murgha Faqirzai is situated near the area in Afghanistan from where about 70 suspected terrorists and drug smugglers tried to force their way into Pakistan after attacking Pakistani security personnel.

The FC troops deployed at the border had foiled the attempt and pushed the terrorists back into Afghan territory.

A Pakistani soldier and a tractor driver had been killed in the surprise attack.

After the incident the authorities decided to destroy the poppy crop because the assailants had used it in their bid to enter Pakistan.

The FC troops destroyed poppy crop cultivated over thousands of acres in different areas of Zhob, Duki and Qilla Abdullah districts last month after conducting an aerial survey.

FC Inspector General Major General Ejaz Shahid Khan said that destruction of poppy crop is part of a campaign to rid the province of narcotics.

“Nobody will be allowed to cultivate poppy in any area of Balochistan,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2014