A group of government officials including policemen, High Court staff and lawyers are involved with the trading of contraband narcotic pill yaba, RAB has found.
As trading routes become risky because of strong surveillance from law enforcement agencies, the professional dealers are now taking the help of people who can easily dodge the radar of law.
Such sensational information was revealed by the members of RAB 7 after arresting an assistant sub-inspector of police from Lalpol area of Feni early yesterday.
Sohel Mahmud, assistant director of RAB 7, said that a black Toyota Allion sedan car, registered in Dhaka, was fleeing in a hurry after a hitting a child in the Feni town.
A RAB patrol team got suspicious, chased the car down, arrested the driver and the owner and took them to their Feni camp for interrogation.
The law enforcers’ suspicion grew stronger as the driver, Md Jabed Ali, 29, started giving incoherent statements. They then searched the car found a stash of 680,000 yaba tablets, Tk7 lakh cash, four mobile phones, eight credit cards of different banks and three note books containing records of drug sale proceeds.
RAB said the market price of the seized yaba pills could be around Tk27.2 crore.
“The RAB officials then interrogated the owner of the car, Mahfuzur Rahman, 35, and learned that he is an assistant sub-inspector [ASI] of police’s Special Branch who works at the technical department of Dhaka,” said RAB 7 assistant director Sohel Mahmud.
Yesterday, a RAB press release said that Mahfuzur developed a good relation with yaba traders while working in Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar during 2011-13.
Mahfuzur told RAB that ASI Md Belal, who works for police’s Detective Branch (DB) in Cox’s Bazar, and Sub-inspector Md Ashiq, in-charge of the Kumira Police outpost of Chittagong district police, asked him to take these pills to Dhaka.
The press release said that a HC staff named Md Motaleb, a lawyer named Jakir, and police’s Special Branch Constables Shahin, Kashem and Giash were schedule to receive these pills from Mahfuzur.
According to the three note books, this racket sold yaba pills worth Tk28.44 crore to a total of 14 people.
During interrogation, arrested police ASI Mahfuzur said that some other police personnel are also involved with the racket. “We are filing a case with the local police station including all the names that Mahfuzur had mentioned ... Once the case is filed, we will hand over the arrested persons to local police [in Feni],” said RAB official Sohel.
When contacted, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, state minister for home affairs, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday: “Nobody is above law. A police ASI had been arrested in Feni for carrying yaba pills. There is a [relevant] law in Bangladesh Police and he will get punishment as per the existing law.”