Cannabis plants at forest office complex lure addicts in Hamirpur

Hamirpur, August 22

Cannabis plants in and around the Forest Office Complex have been luring heroin addicts in the town here. The location of the forest complex is close to the main market and easily accessible to cannabis addicts. Addicts can be seen ‘rubbing’ cannabis plants in early and late hours at this place to extract ‘Bhang’ for consumption. There is one dilapidated building of the department in the area where sanitation workers used to segregate garbage. It appeared that the authorites of the department had adopted a lenient attitude towards the upkeep of the complex here.

Notably, the complex not only houses four major offices of the Forest Department but also has residences of three IFS-rank officers. Despite this cannabis are blooming on the campus. The forest offices here include the office of Conservator of Forest, Divisional Forest Officer (Territorial), DFO (Wildlife) and Conservator of Forest (M&E).

Nishant Mandotra, Conservator of Forests, here, said it was the responsibility of the officers to keep the surroundings of their respective offices clean. He added that the department would organise a special day camp for uprooting the cannabis plants from the complex. Ankit Singh, DFO, territorial, was not available for comments as he was out of station.