Chittagong Bureau :
Intoxicated Yaba tablets traffickers have find out new routes through sea to smuggle the contraband drugs despite enforcement of lawenforcers in a tightened vigilance to combat the drug menace.
Coast Guard officials said, the smugglers were now opting for waterways to transport the drug to Bangladesh instead of land routes.
Several large consignments of Yaba coming through waterways were seized recently.
In the latest incident, coastguards caught one person along with 0.15 million Yaba tablets from a fishing trawler at the outer anchorage in the Sandwip Channel in the Bay of Bengal on Monday night last.
Earlier, police arrested two persons with 30,000 tables from Fishery Ghat area of Chittagong city.
Bangladesh Coast Guard officer Mahfuzul Islam told the New Nation that the consignment caught on Monday was supposed to arrive in Bangladesh several days back, but could not due to tight vigil of the coastguards.
He said around 50 Yaba factories had been established in Myanmar along the bordering areas to supply the drugs to Bangladesh.
The officer said the smugglers were using fishing trawlers to transport the drug as the coastguards gave less attention to them compared to other water vessels. “Smugglers are exploiting this (less vigil on trawlers).
Bangladesh Coast Guard say they seized 72,000 Yaba tables from different fishing trawlers in January and 35,000 in February this year.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police’s Deputy Commissioner Babul Akter told that smugglers were considering waterways ‘safer’ for transport of Yaba amid tight vigil at different points on the land routes.
Department of Narcotics Control Deputy Director Mukul Jyoti Chakma also admitted the fact of yaba trafficking through waterways considering better route than land .
Police sources said smugglers transported Yaba consignments on fishing trawlers and handed them over to their Bangladeshi counterparts in the coastal areas. Sometimes the consignments are handed over on rivers, he added. City Detective Branch (DB) Assistant Commissioner Anwar Hossain told that the persons caught along with a Yaba consignment at Fishiery Ghat were employee of fishing trawler FB Sagor and the owner of a water vessel repairing workshop, Azam Mechanics. During questioning they told police that another trawler handed them over the consignment at a place near Saint Martin’s in Cox’s Bazar.
