A rat infestation is reportedly been blamed for the destruction of nearly 200kg of Cannabis which was seized and being held as evidence according to Police in India.

According to reports; A court in the country heard that the rodents had in some cases “eaten the marijuana” which is being kept as evidence in the police station.

The judge cited three cases in which marijuana was destroyed by rodents.

A statement read to the court said: “Rats are tiny animals and they have no fear of the police. It’s difficult to protect the drug from them.”

Judge Sanjay Chaudhary said in an order that when the court asked the police to produce the seized drug as evidence, it was told that 195kg of cannabis had been “destroyed” by rats.

In another case involving 386kg of the drug, the police filed a report saying “some” of the cannabis was “eaten up by the rats” BBC reports.

Judge Chaudhary told the court a collective weight of 700kg of marijuana which had been seized by the police was lying in police stations in Mathura district and that “all of it was under danger of infestation by rats”.

The Judge reportedly added that said the police had no expertise in dealing with the unwanted visitors as the rats were “too small”.

His outlandish alternative in dealing with the situation was via auction of he seized drugs to research labs and medicine firms, with the proceeds going to the government.

Experts however have disputed the claim, saying that the animals were unlikely to confuse the drug for food and “if a large group of mice had eaten it, a lot of corpses would have been found in the warehouse”.

MP Singh, a senior police official of Mathura district, told the media that the condition of some of the stored marijuana in police stations under his vicinity had been “damaged due to heavy rains” and not destroyed by rats.

 It’s reported that in 2018, eight Argentinian police officers were fired after they blamed mice for the disappearance of half a ton of cannabis from a police warehouse.

In 2017, police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar had blamed rats for consuming thousands of liters of confiscated alcohol, a year after the state banned the sale and consumption of alcohol.

Also in 2018, technicians who arrived to fix a malfunctioning cash machine in the state of Assam reported discovered that currency notes worth more than 1.2m rupees (US$14,691) were ripped apart with rats the suspected culprits.