Police Accused Rats Of Eating 200 kg Of Bhang Which Was Seized As Evidence Of Criminals.
Police blamed rats for destroying around 200kg of cannabis seized from criminals and kept at the police station.Courts in India have heard that rodents are sometimes kept as evidence of drug possession.
The judge said three cases of marijuana being destroyed by rodents have been reported.A statement to the court said: “Rats are small animals and are not afraid of the police. “It is difficult to keep drugs from them.”
When the court asked the police to produce the seized drugs as evidence, Justice Sanjay Chaudhary said that 195 kilograms of cannabis had been “destroyed” by rats.
In another case involving 386 kg of narcotics, the police reported that “some of the narcotics had been eaten by rats”.
Justice Chaudhary said around 700 kg of ganja seized by the police was lying in a police station in Mathura district and all of it was at risk of being infested by rat.
He said the police have no experience dealing with the problem because the rats are “very small”.
He added that the only way to protect the confiscated goods from “such fearless rats” is to auction the drug for testing laboratories and medical firms, with the government’s proceeds.
In 2018, eight Argentine police officers were fired after they blamed rats for removing half a ton of marijuana from a police warehouse.
But experts refuted the idea, saying the animal was probably not contaminated with drugs and that “a large group of rats ate it, and many corpses were found in the warehouse.”
In 2017, police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar blamed thousands of liters of confiscated alcohol, a year after banning the sale and consumption of alcohol.
In 2018, technicians who came to fix a malfunctioning cash register in Assam discovered that more than 1.2 million rupees ($14,691; ₹ 12,143) in currency had been cut and the culprit was a rat.
