KABUL, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police have arrested seven people on the charge of involvement in drug smuggling and destroyed around 70 acres of poppy farms in three out of Afghanistan's 34 provinces over the past two days, said a statement of the country's Ministry of Interior Affairs released here Saturday.
The alleged smugglers, according to the statement, were attempting to sell the contraband to drug addicts in different parts of the country, but police identified and took them into custody for investigation.
Police also destroyed around 70 acres of poppy farms in Ghor, Parwan, Daikondi and Badakhshan provinces over the past week.
Also, Afghan counter-narcotics police arrested eight people on the charge of involvement in drug smuggling in Kabul last week.
In April of last year, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Afghan caretaker administration, issued a decree to ban the cultivation of illegal crops, such as poppy, as well as the processing of these crops into drugs and any related drug trafficking within the country. ■
