India’s railways, built to move people and goods, are now a preferred corridor for ganja traffickers. In just five days, officers at Bhubaneswar railway station have seized more than 85 kilograms of cannabis and arrested four people, exposing an inter-state network that is swapping crowded highways for packed trains.
The latest raid came after a joint operation by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Odisha Excise Department. About 30 kg of ganja, valued at roughly ₹3 lakh, was recovered and two men from Uttar Pradesh — identified as Ajab Singh and Upendra Singh — were taken into custody. Excise Superintendent Debasish Patel said investigators are still tracing the organisers behind the consignment and their links across states.
That bust followed another, barely 24 hours after the first. On the night of August 27, four suitcases packed with ganja bound for Mumbai were intercepted at the same station. Two people were arrested then: Subodh from Bihar and Rahul Bhuiyan from Ganjam. About 55 kg was seized in that case. Preliminary inquiry suggested the consignment had been collected from the Khalikote belt of Ganjam district and was headed west.
Officials say the pattern is no coincidence. Road checkpoints and toll plazas have made truck and car routes riskier. Trains, with lighter routine checks on luggage and parcels, look safer to couriers. Ganja gathered in Ganjam, Kandhamal and Gajapati is being moved in trolley bags, suitcases and parcels toward Mumbai, Delhi, Haryana and Bengaluru.
This is not a one-off spike. In October 2025, 30 kg was seized at Bhubaneswar station. In January 2026, sniffer dogs helped officers catch two more suspects. Similar recoveries have been reported on trains such as the Konark Express. Railway police sources say seizures this year already run into thousands of kilograms, with hundreds of arrests.
RPF officials say an inter-state network is active and a wider investigation is under way. At the station’s parcel office, a newly inaugurated 3D parcel scanner is expected to make hidden consignments harder to slip through.
