SEVERAL Indian syndicates are smuggling Yaba pills from Myanmar and then sending them into Bangladesh through their carriers. The Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) revealed this following the first ever arrest of an Indian national for Yaba possession in Bangladesh.
DB officials said they unearthed at least two cases in which two Indians were found to have entered Bangladesh and engaged in selling the crazy pills to local dealers. On August 9, Indian national Md Abdus Sabur, 34, and two Bangladeshi Yaba dealers — Shamsul Alam, 28, and Jakir Hossain, 40 – were arrested along with 10,000 pills from a house in the capital’s Rampura. Yaba smugglers changed their route in the face of tougher vigilance of law enforcers in Teknaf, known as the gateway of smuggling Yaba into the country.
By now the security agencies should have established a national database of all known Yaba dealers and godfathers and taken steps to eliminate their involvement in the trade. Merely finding out the carriers will not help to stop the trade when the godfathers are merrily running it. What the security forces need to do is to find out how it comes in–a method which the smugglers change yearly, and how to eliminate the top godfathers in the profession.
If godfathers like Bodi get away without having to surrender, then catching thousands of such carriers will be of no avail. A DNC report mentions him as a patron of Yaba trade in Ukhia-Teknaf, the gateway of smuggling the crazy drug from Myanmar. It also names his brothers Mujibur Rahman and Abdul Shukkur and cousin Mong Mong Sen as Yaba godfathers.
Besides, according to an intelligence agency report, there are 120 listed drug traders in Cox’s Bazar. Sources in law enforcement agencies say Yaba consumption per year in Bangladesh is estimated to be 46 crore pills worth around Tk 11,531 crore. The average price of a pill is Tk 250. What’s more disturbing is that the listed top Yaba godfathers have never been sentenced for Yaba smuggling. This is a question the authorities must answer.
