Yaba comes thru Indian border too

Yaba pills are being smuggled into Bangladesh through Indian border besides large scale smuggling through Myanmar border and sea route, causing fresh concerns among security officials during the ongoing anti-drug drives.
Officials in the Border Guard Bangladesh and the Department of Narcotics Control seized several consignments and arrested a number of carriers in recent months in Chapainawabganj, Rajshahi, Jaipurhat, Jashore, Sylhet, Cumilla and Brahmanbaria districts.
The officials said that they were not sure if the Yaba pills smuggled through Indian borders were manufactured in India or the smugglers were using India borders as the route.
They said that they had already communicated with Indian authorities with the available information and sought their cooperation in identify the routes and producers to fight against the drug menace. 
Narcotics Control Bureau of India, responsible for fighting trafficking and abuse of drugs, was communicated time and again, a senior home ministry official said. 
The home ministry is, however, yet to get any response from the Indian bureau also put Yaba tablets, containing a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine, after cocaine as stimulants in India, the official said.
The official said that they sought India’s cooperation during 4th BIMSTEC Summit in Kathmandu in August 2018. ‘Our DNC is sharing real time information with their Indian NCB.’ 
The government announced in May 2018 a nationwide crackdown against drugs, mainly Yaba. 
In the crackdown, at least 305 people, mostly suspected carriers, were either killed in gunfight or found shot dead amid local and international criticism over human rights abuse.
Drug dens have been busted in Cox’s Bazar and elsewhere and over 30,000 suspects are currently in jail. Despite all efforts, the border and security officials said that the Yaba tablets continued to be seized in bordering districts and even in Dhaka. Rapid Action Battalion seized 20,000 pieces of Yaba pills with four carriers in the capital’s airport area on February 8, the officials said. 
Border Guard Bangladesh officials believed that that the consignment of 800 Yaba tablets seized from a carrier in Sylhet border in October 2018 originated in Myanmar but smuggled through Mizoram while several consignments Yaba pills seized in Cumilla and Brahmanbaria were coming from Myanmar via Tripura. 
The Border Guard Bangladesh is one of the leading forces fighting against Yaba and most of its seizures have been reported in Tekhnaf upazila of Cox’s Bazar. The border force seized 5,26,942 Yaba pills in January, 2019 while 1.26 crore Yaba tablets others were seized in 2018. 
Border guard director general Major General Md Shafeenul Islam said in the face of continued and tight vigilance along Tekhnaf border, Yaba smugglers found out new routes. 
‘We have seized Yaba in Sylhet too. How those could reach Sylhet frontier,’ he said.
‘Those were coming through the country’s western border too,’ he said, adding, ‘we have tightened our vigilance over Sylhet, western border and Tekhnaf.’
A number of Consignments ranging 200 to 500 Yaba tablets smuggled through Chapainawabganj, Rajshahi, Jaipurhat and Jashore borders were seized recently, they said, adding that they were not sure if those tablets were produced in India.
‘We are gathering more specific information and evidence about the sources,’ said a border guard official.
Department of Narcotics Control officials said that they recently seized four consignments of Yaba in Rajshahi and all of the four carriers said that they had brought those from Malda and Murshidbad region in India. 
A senior narcotics control official told New Age on Friday that they caught the first consignment of 830 Yaba tablets on January 21 followed by 800 tablets on January 28, 600 tablets on February 5 and 1,500 tablets on February 6.
All the consignments were from India and came through Chapainawabganj border, the investigators said. 
A narcotic control official said that they found something inscribed on the small consignments. ‘We could not read them as those were written with characters like “Chinese script”,’ he said.
‘But,’ the official said, ‘we think it was written to misguide us as available information suggested that those Yaba tablets were produced in India.’
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Yaba, the ‘crazy medicine’ is a tablet form of methamphetamine and a very powerful stimulant. 
Yaba is now the main form of methamphetamine abused in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia as well as Viet Nam and Myanmar, where it is typically manufactured, it said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net