HARIPUR, Jan 17: A number of farmers of two remote union councils of the Haripur district have grown poppy crop on a vast area, sources told Dawn here on Friday.

The sources in the revenue department also confirmed the reports but the police contested them, saying that only a very small area had been brought under poppy cultivation.

They said it would soon be either voluntarily or forcibly destroyed within the next couple of weeks.

The union Nazims were also being forced to persuade the defiant growers through jirgas, said a union Nazim.

Reports reaching here from union councils Bait Gali and Nara Amazai, situated northwest of Haripur bordering district Swabi, suggested that poppy crop was sown at a vast area of these remotest union councils in defiance of the countrywide ban on this illicit crop.

"Though I do not know the exact area under poppy cultivation right now, reports suggest that they (farmers) sowed this crop at over 50 per cent of the total area," said a responsible official of the revenue department.

He added that these growers, to whom his staff could count and identify, are over 600 in number.

The source said that his staff was not allowed to visit poppy farms in many areas and had to return without noting their names for fear of their resistance.

He also complained about the shortage of revenue staff in tehsil Ghazi.

About the reported increase in the sowing of poppy the source attributed it to the good weather conditions, which according to him motivated a majority of farmers to opt for the banned crop this time around.

When contacted, ASP Ghazi Sajjad Hasan Manj, expressed his ignorance about the exact area under poppy cultivation in two UCs.

However, he said the police had so far registered cases against three individuals under section 9-C.

Others, if any, have been warned of action if they failed to destroy their standing crop.

He said at a jirga of elite of the two UCs, held at the office of tehsil Nazim Ghazi, the area people agreed to destroy their crop by Jan 22.

The District Police Officer Haripur Abdullah Khan also expressed the same views, adding that people might have sown poppy over a small area for its use as medicine.