5 held with 18,000 yaba pills in capital

Detectives arrested five alleged drug traders and recovered 18,000 yaba pills from Mirpur area of the city on Thursday night.

The arrestees are Nurul Amin, 35; Abdul Aziz, 27; Md Rafique Uddin, 31, a truck driver; Md Giasuddin, 37; and Abdur Shukur, 32.

Based on a tip-off, a team of Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) conducted a drive in Mazar Road area under Darus Salam Police Station around 10:30pm.

During the raid, the detectives searched a truck that was parked near Dhanshiri Restaurant, said DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Masudur Rahman yesterday.

They recovered 18,000 pills from the truck and arrested the five in connection with it, he said, adding that the truck was also seized.

During preliminary interrogation, the arrestees revealed that they used to bring yaba tablets to Dhaka from Teknaf in Cox's Bazar, hiding those inside the truck, and then distribute those in various areas in Dhaka and nearby districts, Masudur said.

58 ARRESTED IN 24HRS

As part of the ongoing anti-narcotics drive in the capital, DMP arrested 58 people on charges of selling and consuming drugs in 24 hours till 6:00am yesterday.

DB, in association with local police stations, carried out the simultaneous drive starting at 6:00am on Thursday.

A total of 18,470 yaba tablets, 1,185 packets containing around 1.05kg heroin, 1.65kg marijuana, 90 bottles of phensidyl and 475 ampoules of sedative injections were recovered from the arrestees' possession, said DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Masudur Rahman.

Some 39 cases were filed with different police stations under the Narcotics Control Act over the arrests and drug recovery, he said.