Focus now on yaba smugglers: Rab DG

Drug dealers are adopting new techniques, and have also changed the routes of smuggling in yaba from Myanmar, as vigilance of law enforcement agencies at Teknaf in Cox's Bazar became stronger now.

The techniques include bringing the pills hiding inside hair, eggplants, flower buckets, cell phones, speakers, vehicles engines, oil containers, false ceiling of trucks, flashlights and even inside the Holy Quran.

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) made the disclosure while presenting a summary of their 187 days' countrywide special anti-narcotics drive.

Rab made a presentation during a discussion organised by anti-narcotics and anti-terrorism groups CATT, ADHUNIK, SASC and WHO health forum at Rab headquarters in the capital's Uttara yesterday.

“We first took action against retail drug traders, then against dealers and carriers, and now we are trying to take action against the smugglers,” said Benazir Ahmed, director general of Rab.

Since the crackdown began on May 3, Rab has taken legal action against 17,328 people, while 84 drug dealers were killed in "gunfights", he added.

Addressing the event as chief guest, he said they have many successes in the last six months, but they are not completely satisfied with it. “We want to uproot the menace of drugs from the country, but it needs some time as it is not possible to solve a years-long problem within days,” he said.

DG Benazir said they set up five temporary check-posts in Cox's Bazar with existing two in Teknaf, as it is the main smuggling route of yaba, but drug smugglers are now changing their routes.

Now smugglers are bringing yaba from Myanmar into Bangladesh via Assam and Meghalaya through the Sylhet border, he said, adding that they are also taking deep sea routes to smuggle yaba through Barishal.

Once it arrives in Bangladesh, yaba is hidden inside eggplants by removing its innards, inside cell phones by removing batteries, inside vehicle engines or battery boxes, by creating a false section in oil containers or trucks, and inside motorbike shock absorbers, said the Rab chief.

Specific intelligence is required to catch these shipments, and Rab officials are putting in round-the-clock efforts for it, but narcotics is a social problem and it is not possible to stop the menace by law enforcers alone, said the Rab DG. 664545