Bijbehara (appellation)
More actions
| Bijbehara | |
|---|---|
| Bijbehara belt | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Regional Complex | Hindu Kush-Himalayan |
| Growing Region | Western Himalayas |
| Growing Area | Kashmir Valley |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Jammu and Kashmir |
| Coordinates | 33.79, 75.11 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 155 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately Bijbehara tehsil, Anantnag district |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Bijbehara is a landrace cannabis appellation of the Kashmir Valley growing area, round the town of Bijbehara in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir, a union territory administered by India. The Kashmir region has been disputed between India and Pakistan since the partition of 1947.[1] In 2011 Kashmir Life named twelve places in "the Bijhbehara belt" where cannabis was grown, and in 2026 the police destroyed cannabis cultivated on private land at Marhama, in the area of the Bijbehara police station.[2][3]
Cultivation
The twelve places in the 2011 report are Dupathyaar, Hayar, Takibal, Ghantalipora, Kandipora, Semthan, Tulkhan, Thajiwara, Guri, Kanilwan, Veeri and Krendi. Dupathyaar, about 7 km from Bijbehara town, had fields of cannabis and opium poppy along its approach road. A local social activist told the magazine that about 358 of its 360 households grew cannabis and lived mainly on it.[2]
In the extraction season boys from the surrounding villages worked in the fields for the day, extracting bhang, while cut plants were stacked for making charas; an elderly resident said that the cultivators paid schoolboys Rs 420 for a day's work. Women of the village also grew and extracted the crop.[2] The authorities had raided Dupathyaar, Takibal and other places several times in the days before the report. A man from a neighbouring village told the magazine that the raiding parties only cut or uprooted the plants and left them on the fields, and that the cultivators then took them home, dried them and ground them into bhang powder, which he described as more valuable than charas.[2]
In June 2026 the Anantnag police destroyed illegally cultivated cannabis on private land at Nai Basti, Marhama, in the presence of an executive magistrate and witnesses, and registered a case under the NDPS Act at the Bijbehara police station.[3]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
See also
References
- ↑ "Kashmir". Encyclopædia Britannica. 15 October 2026. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Irfan, Shams (5 December 2011). "Fields of Addiction". Kashmir Life. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 KR Desk (2 June 2026). "Nasha Mukt J&K Abhiyan: Police arrest 4 drug peddlers, destroy illegal cannabis crops, organize awareness rallies". Kashmir Reader. Retrieved 19 October 2026.