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| A poppy plantation in a remote area of Thanchi upazila in Bandarban Dist. Inset: Army personnel. (Photo: Daily star bd) |
Bangladesh has launched an operation to destroy poppy plantations in the remote hilly areas in the southeast on the Burmese border.
The operation started on 19 February in the areas under Bandarban District in Bangladesh, with a joint team of army, police, and Border Guard Bangladesh personnel. The operation will last for 14 days, reported the Daily Star, and English newspaper in Bangladesh, on Friday.
The newspaper reported that the joint forces have been cutting down the poppy plants before burning them and distributing vegetable seeds and musical instruments to the cultivators who are local indigenous people, in order to discourage poppy cultivation and preserve indigenous culture.
It was also reported that officials blamed Burmese militant outfits for luring indigenous Bangladeshis into growing poppy.
According to the border sources, armed Burmese opposition groups had been based in the areas in the 1990's, but have disappeared or moved to the Indian borders since 2001.
Local people living across the borders in Bangladesh, Burma, and India have been cultivating poppy with the support of cross-border syndicates for the past ten years, as poppy has fetched higher profits than other crops grown on their land that is remote and hard to reach.
More than a thousand poppy fields are cultivated in the border areas of Bangladesh, Burma, and India every year. Bangladesh has launched a poppy operation in the area every year and destroyed 122 poppy fields in 2010.
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