Mohammad Jamil Khan

For the first time in the country, around 100 yaba godfathers and dealers will surrender today at a formal programme in Teknaf, the entry point for the deadly drug from Myanmar.

A syndicate of around 500 paid agents and carriers, who once oversaw yaba smuggling on behalf of their godfathers and dealers, has now taken control of the trade in Teknaf and Ukhia, the entry points of the drug to Bangladesh.

Yaba smugglers are now using air routes to carry the crazy pills to the capital from Teknaf, the gateway for the drugs to Bangladesh.

The other side of Abdur Rahman Bodi, widely known as a yaba godfather, is quite intriguing. The former Awami League lawmaker has been spending roughly Tk 19 crore per annum for the last three years on distributing rice among 56,000 poor people in Teknaf every month.

IGP Mohammad Javed Patwary yesterday ordered the police officials to re-intensify the countrywide anti-narcotics drive.

Police high-ups yesterday placed before the home minister a host of demands that include land allocation for the force and appointment of police officials to the key posts, including that of the director general, at the passport department.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday gave her nod to all the demands placed before her on the opening day of the Police Week yesterday.

Yaba traders are adopting new techniques every day to bring the pills to the capital. They are now using mostly homeless children, aged between 10 and 15 years, as drug mules. They pay the children to take the risks.

One would be mesmerised by the duplex mansions by the 13km road between Teknaf Zero Point and Shah Porir Island. Most of the mansions are in the middle of farmland, forest or just beside the road.

With law enforcers locking up listed drug dealers and smugglers, new groups are filling their shoes adopting generous marketing strategies, including sales on credit. They are also using new routes to smuggle in yaba from Myanmar.

Nahiyan often springs up from bed at midnight and starts looking for her father Akramul Haque, the slain ward councillor of Teknaf municipality. The 12-year-old scurries to her father's bed and breaks down.

Take a trip down the Cox's Bazar-Teknaf highway, and you cannot miss the eye-catching duplex building by the main road near Leda station.

A two-storey training centre inside the secure compound of Cox's Bazar Police Lines is now the “safe home” for 63 alleged yaba godfathers and dealers in the district. At least 24 of them are on the government list of 73 top drug dealers in the country, said a top police official in Cox's Bazar.

Looking up at the Mayor Hanif Flyover at Sayedabad end, one can find two large road signs that read “vehicle stoppage is not allowed” and “crossing or movement of the pedestrian is prohibited”.

From Shishu Park to Shahbagh police box in the capital is a five-minute walk. But by bus on a weekday afternoon yesterday, it took over 30 minutes.

Inspired by last year's student movement for road safety, the traffic department of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is going to include school and college students as volunteers in the fortnightly traffic discipline programme starting today.

For her birthday yesterday, all she wanted was a teddy bear from her parents. Billal Hossain, her uncle, was going to buy her one as a surprise.

Four Bangladeshi NGOs have channelled Tk 73 crore, received in foreign aids, to militant outfits and Jamaat-e-Islami over the last one year, law enforcement agencies have claimed following some recent arrests.

Voters in char areas of Lalmonirhat seem to have lost hope as several promises regarding the area's development had been announced in previous elections over the decades but nothing was done in reality.

Though Lalmonirhat-3 has been a stronghold of the Jatiya Party, a partner in the Awami League-led grand alliance, since 1991, the Jatiya Oikyafront, led by the BNP and several other parties, is eyeing a win this time.