Click to enlarge: A simple mistake or a deliberate act of guerilla gardening? (Picture: CEN)

Council heads in the Kazakh capital have launched an investigation after cannabis plants began sprouting up in flowerbeds in the city centre.

Local people in Astana City noticed an unusual aroma as they walked down Auezova Street and alerted the authorities when they found thousands of marijuana plants flourishing in the flower beds that line the road.

The city council are now investigating whether the planting of the marijuana was a simple mistake or a deliberate act of guerilla gardening.

Mihail Malorod was one of the residents who first noticed the plants.


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‘I was walking down the street when I saw these cute plants at the junction of Auezova Street and Dzhangeldina Street,’ he said.

‘What a nice little flowerbed, I thought.’

Marat Asymbaev added: ‘What is that was the idea of the police? What if they wanted to catch all the junkies in our city?’

A spokesman for Zelenstroy, an urban gardening service who are contracted by the council to tend for the city’s flowerbeds, said that the company is running its own internal investigation.

‘If they are marijuana plants we will remove them immediately,’ he said.