Organised syndicates smuggling Indian contraband drugs
RANGPUR, Aug 16:- Unabated flow of smuggled Indian phensidyl, heroine, ganja, wine, pathedrine and other contraband drugs into Bangladesh is continuing through the north-western borders from Satkhira to Kurigram areas by organised syndicates in recent years, reports BSS.
Trafficking of such harmful drugs has reached enormous proportions following clandestine growth of spurious drug factories inside the Indian frontiers creating a real threat to the young generations of Bangladesh, concerned sources and frontier people said.
Law enforcing agencies and sources close to the drug trafficking said that the low-quality and spurious phensidyl produced in those factories set up by Indian businessmen are not at all being consumed or marketed inside India but are totally smuggled into Bangladesh making a brisk business of millions of taka every month by the syndicates.
Most of these drug factories have reportedly been set up inside India along the borders of Jessore, Meherpur, Kushtia, Chapainawabganj, Naogaon, Joypurhat, Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat and Kurigram districts within a range of half a kilometre to 10 kilometre from the zero line of the common borders.
About 2,000 such drug factories have sprung up across the borderlines as cottage industries engaging over 3,000 Indian nationals there permanently to run the most profitable drug business in the Bangladeshi market.
The worst side of the trade is that these factories produce spurious drugs without maintaining any standard endangering the lives of thousands of Bangladeshi youths both in rural and urban areas throughout the country.
Officials and elite in the northwestern frontier areas told BSS recently that phensidyl was once a widely prescribed cough syrup in the country. But since its banning in 1980s, the Indian drug traders are producing sedative chemicals and marketing as phensidyl through illegal ways in Bangladesh and a section of our youths are consuming these spurious and harmful drugs everyday.
According to some competent sources along the frontiers, phensidyl is also being produced in Guzrat, Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Tripura, Rajasthan and Orissya of India maintaining higher quality to consume these products as medicine inside India.
But only a very little quantity of these quality phensidyl reach Bangladesh. Nobody can find a single Indian drug-addict to consume phensidyl as a drug anywhere in India which proves that Bangladeshi youths are targeted for consumption of the spurious drugs produced in India, they said.
Concerned officials said besides the harmful phensidyl, huge quantities of different brands of Indian wines, heroine, ganja, Pathedrine, sex stimulating tablets, narcotic substances and other drugs are being smuggled into Bangladesh through the bordering areas everyday. Only a very little percentage of these smuggled items are seized by the BDR personnel and other law enforcing agencies.
Sources along the north-western borders said after bottling of phensidyl, the factory owners bring the chemicals to warehouses along the borderlines from where a large number of Bangladeshi men, women and children are used to smuggle those inside Bangladesh at dead of nights.
The smuggled-in drugs are then stockpiled in the similar warehouses or thatched houses in bordering Bangladeshi villages before being sent inside the country through different routes and using different modes of transports. Syndicates of drug smugglers of both sides are so cooperative that their transactions are generally made through Hundi, sources said.
A BDR source said, BDR jawans under Dinajpur sector seized over 1.5 lakh bottles of phensidyl, 7,000 bottles of wines, 10 kgs of heroine, over 138 kgs of ganja , huge quantities of pathedrine and other drugs since January 1, 2003 from the 498 km- long common borders in Naogaon, Joypurhat, Dinajpur and Thakurgaon.
Over 600 drug-traffickers were also arrested during the period. Chapainwabganj battalion of BDR also seized huge quantities of such drugs during the same period.
The drug smugglers are so organised that once they attacked BDR personnel on July 15 and August 7 last year when the BDR men challenged them near the zero-line in Hilli border under Hakimpur upazila of Dinajpur. The BDR men were forced to open 33 rounds of blank fire and seized huge quantities of phensidyl, pathedrine and other drugs from the spot.
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