"Rats are tiny animals and they have no fear of the police," a judge in India's Uttar Pradash state said, referring to multiple cannabis cases where rodents apparently ate the evidence. Police in the region claim that in recent years, rats inside the police stations have devoured hundreds of pounds of cannabis that was seized in drug busts. From the BBC News:
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".
Judge Chaudhary said some 700kg of marijuana seized by the police was lying in police stations in Mathura district and that "all of it was under danger of infestation by rats".
He said the police had no expertise in dealing with the matter as the rats were "too small". The only way to protect the seized goods from "such fearless mice", he added, was to auction the drugs to research labs and medicine firms, with the proceeds going to the government.
