As law enforcing agencies nowadays are busy with tackling political unrest, the Yaba smugglers are getting more chances than any other time in the recent past to smuggle the narcotic into the country from neighbouring country Myanmar through Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar.
Smuggling of Yaba tablets has been rising in Chittagong at an alarming rate for last couple of days beating all kinds of resistance of law enforcement agencies, said different law enforcing agencies.
Almost every day the law enforcement agencies have Yaba seizure which indicates that peddling of the contraband item is going rampant, the sources said.
Police, Detective Branch (DB), Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB), Bangladesh Coast Guard (BCG), Bangladesh Navy and Directorate of Narcotics Control (DNC) in their separate drives seized about 2,000,000 Yaba tablets from Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar districts since last month.
But the number was about 15,80,000 in 2014, about 4,00,000 in 2013 and about 2,50,000 in 2012 in the districts, said DNC Chittagong Metropolitan’s Superintendent Inspector Chowdhury Imrul Hasan.
He also said the smugglers preferred to use the water route than the land route for quick and risk-free peddling.
Another reason for choosing water route is only coastguard and navy look over the water territory while the land areas are under surveillance of many forces.
DNC Chittagong Metropolitan’s Deputy Director Ali Aslam told Dhaka Tribune that smugglers who used the water route in the recent times could not be arrested.
“As the law enforcers on land areas are busy to face the recent political violence since the beginning of the year, smugglers get chance to increase their activities,” he said.
According to Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP), there are about 274 drug spots in the port city which are being controlled by 106 drug smugglers. The drug peddlers mainly do yaba business.
The smugglers, however, mostly use water-ways of Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar at present, but they also use Rangamati, Bandarban, Comilla, Feni and Chittagong’s Mirsarai borders as their smuggling routes, said DNC and law enforcing sources.
When the border routes went under strict surveillance, the smugglers use Satkhira and Khulna as their new routes.
Additional Commissioner (crime and operation) of the CMP Banaz Kumar Majumder said the huge seizure of the narcotic indicates that law enforcers have strong vigilance over the matter.