That ganja is sold, bought and smoked freely in this city has stopped raising eyebrows, as any other college student is likely to testify, anonymously. But a vast swathe of land by the river nurturing a flourishing marijuana farm hit cops as a hard surprise.

Potbed: The 300 plants, found growing by the Mula-Mutha river in Kharadi,  could have produced 64 kg of weed, which would have traded for Rs 5.5 lakh

Leaving them even more wide-eyed is the fact that the plot on which the pot was brewing — before they weeded it all out — belongs to the state government’s irrigation department.