Syed Shemul Parvez :
Drug business and trafficking continue in the capital despite regular anti-drug drives and heavy crackdowns by the law enforcing agencies.
As a result, number of addicted people is increasing. According to research, youth are becoming more addicted to drugs easily. It is causing damage to their physical and mental health in addition to harming their studies.
Experts fear if it cannot be controlled now, social values will humiliate, criminal activities will increase, corruption will spread and the law and order situation will worsen, as well as a riskier situation may arise in Bangladesh.
According to sources, drug mainly enters Bangladesh from neighboring countries India and Myanmar via land and sea routes.
Huge numbers of drugs come from India without any difficulty as Bangladesh shares border with India on three sides. Not only yaba and hemp are coming, nowadays, crystal meth, which is more dangerous than yaba, is coming and that is a new concern for the country.
Meanwhile, the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) has listed nearly 3,500 “drug traders” in a bid to curb the trade of illegal substances. Even DNC has already traced 15 drug trafficking routes connecting to Myanmar. An investigative research on drug trafficking routes by the DNC claims that several dishonest members of Bangladesh’s law enforcement agencies receive huge amounts of money from the drug dealers and help them in drug trafficking. That is why drug dealers can transfer illegal narcotics without any fear.
Recently, many anti-drug drives and heavy crackdowns were conducted by the law enforcing agencies in city’s Jatrabari area. In these drives, hundreds of drug peddlers were arrested.
In this regard, when asked why Jatrabari area is hot spot or place for the drug business, Mazharul Islam, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Jatrabari Police Station told the New Nation that actually Jatrabari is one of the most significant places as entrance of the capital.
Hemp normally comes from Cumilla and Yaba from Teknaf. All types of drugs are entering capital as Jatrabari is one of the entrance of Dhaka. Using modern information technology, we generally trace the suspected number and arrest drug peddlers , OC said.
M Imdaul Haque, Professor of North South University who researches on narcotics, said, “Drug trafficking has become multidimensional. Smugglers now use the Dark Web and law enforcement agencies do not get the information. Bitcoin is used for transactions. So, it has become difficult to trace drug trafficking rings. Our country’s law enforcement agencies are not as savvy with technology as the drug dealers. If initiative is not taken to enhance the capacity, the drug threat will increase, he added.
According to a recent research of the DNC, around 1 million people are involved with drug dealings directly and indirectly. Some 100,000 women and children are also involved in drug trafficking. Most of these women and children are from poor family and they are being used as drug peddlers in exchange of small money. Besides, one fourth of drug addicts are youth and half of the youths are students.
