Tk 4.75cr Indian drugs destroyed

Authorities destroyed huge quantities of smuggled Indian drugs and cigarettes worth over Tk 4 crore 75 lakh on the premises of BGB-28 camp in the district town yesterday.

The drugs including 31,409 bottles of of wine, 312 bottles of beer, 10 litres of Bangla drug, and 10,980 packets of bidi (a kind of low quality cigarette) and 11.500 kg of hemp were seized in border areas of the district at different times.

Syndicates of smugglers bring drugs through border points in different upazilas of the district from the neighbouring country and these are supplied to different parts of the country by buses, trucks, microbuses, pick-ups, motorcycles and boats.

A few border areas of Tekerhat in Taherpur and Naraontola in Sadar upazila are serving as safe zones for drug smugglers, locals said.

Wine production on the other side of the border is rampant and smugglers prefer the routes in different border areas of Sunamganj as a few rivers there make the task easy, said sources.

Contacted, BGB Commanding Officer Lt Col Nasir Uddin Ahmed said, "Despite lack of logistics and manpower for conducting proper patrol in the border areas of Sunamganj, the law enforcers have zero tolerance about drug smuggling. I think the situation will improve when ongoing construction of our border camps will complete.