The unusual cooperation from a police confirmed the allegation that drug dealing is going on unhindered in the capital as well as other urban areas in the country thanks to a nexus between drug barons and law enforcement agencies.

Drug dealers say they run the trade by managing all the law enforcement agencies concerned. "Every one gets a piece of the pie. People from all the agencies come to us to collect their weekly cuts," said a drug peddler of Doyaganj. "They raid the drug spots only if they don't get the kickback or if any special instruction comes from the top," he said. In most cases, drug addicts not the pushers become victims of such raids.

Visiting a number of drug dens in the city, this correspondent found people were buying drugs even in presence of the police. The police teams sitting near by did not show any intention to resist the drug pushing.

Despite several law enforcement agencies in operation in the city, injecting drugs and Phensedyl, heroin, cannabis etc are being openly sold at more than 100 spots. Traders of Yaba, Ecstasy and cocaine are also running their businesses as well.

A recent Rapid Situation Assessment survey carried out by CARE Bangladesh found there are at least 25 well-known drug spots in Mymensingh, 28 in Chittagong, 22 in Sirajganj, 12 in Faridpur, 16 in Cox's Bazar, 27 in Narsingdi, 18 in Brahmanbaria and 32 in Sylhet. All sorts of drugs are available at these spots, the survey reported.

Every year the law enforcers seize some drugs and arrest some people, but the trade goes on as usual. The arrested drug peddlers eventually get bail from the court and return to the business. More than 25,000 drug-related cases are now pending with the courts, sources at the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) said.

The formation of elite forces like Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) has not changed the situation much. Since coming into operation in June 2004, Rab has recovered 44.34 kg heroin, 2.76 kg cocaine, 669.7 kg opium and cannabis, 173,086 bottles of Phensedyl, 965 Yaba tablets, and 998 ampoules of pathedrin, 293 of morphine and 498 of Tidigesic, sources said.

The DNC and the Detective Branch of police have also conducted a number of raids on drug spots and recovered huge amounts of drugs. In last year, the DNC alone arrested 1,147 persons in the city for drug pushing and filed 969 cases.

Still sources at Rab acknowledged that different kinds of drugs are being sold at a large number of spots in the city. These include Kamrangirchar, Begunbari Slum, Bhanga Gate, Shahinbagh, Nakhalpara, Titipara Slum, Sutrapur, City Polli, Dholpur, Demra, Tejkunipara, Chankhar Pool, Tilpapara in Khilgaon, Modongoli in Sipahibagh, Mirpur Shah Ali Mazar, Agargaon, Kantabon, Newmarket South Gate, Alamganj, Diabari Slum and Geneva Camp in Mohammadpur. A number of places in Uttara and near Nakhalpara Shia Mosque, Pagla Bridge, Nayabazar Yusuf Market, Arambagh Club, Mohamedan Club, Baitul Mokarram, Bangabazar in Fulbaria, Swamibagh rail-line, and Tejgaon and Komlapur railway stations are also on the list.

A police high official said political commitment is a must to rout a complex social problem like drug running. "It's not really possible [for the police] to stop drug dealing. If somebody goes into this business, he would continue it until his death. It needs a political commitment to remove this [vice] from the society," he said requesting anonymity.

On the other hand, a DNC high official said the police really do not want to stop drug running, as it is a large source of income for them. They earn a lot of money on a daily basis from the drug dens, he added.

On the role of DNC in this regard, he said the department has only a 700-man staff, with the number field inspectors limited to just 103. Only five or less than five officials are posted in a district. In every district there are many upazilas and in every upazila there are several drug spots, he said, adding it is impossible to curb the entire drug business in a district by five or six people. He emphasised increasing the manpower of the DNC, as drug running has spread to rural areas too.

"If the government wants to effectively check drug running in the country, the budget [of the DNC] has to be increased. It's not possible to fight a business of Tk 6,000 crore with a budget of merely Tk 12 crore," he said.