12 held with over one lakh yaba pills in Cox's Bazar

Bangladesh Coast Guard yesterday detained 11 Rohingya men with 100,000 yaba pills from a fishing trawler on the Bay of Bengal in Teknaf upazila of Cox's Bazar.

Lieutenant Faizul Islam Mandal, station commander of coast guard in St Martin's Island, said all the detained Rohingyas were from Myanmar's Maungdaw.

Acting on a tip-off, coast guard members conducted a drive in the South-East area of the Bay and recovered the large consignment of the crazy pills, he said.

“Thus, we prevented the yaba pills from entering Bangladesh,” the coast guard official said.

The detainees are Kabir Ahmed, 35, Nabi Majhi, 20, Amanullah, 18, Tarekullah, 14, Kamal Uddin, 20, Md Saber, 18, Md Riaz, 14, Md Shaker, 16, Md Faisal, 16, Rahmatullah 19, and Md Riaz, 18.

Coast guard filed a case with Teknaf Police Station against the detainees and handed them over to the police station.

Elsewhere in the district, police arrested another man with 10,000 yaba pills around 6:45am.

The arrestee is Habib Ullah, 45, a former general secretary of pro-BNP student organisation Jatiatabadi Chhatra Dal.

Mujahidul Islam, officer-in-charge of Ramu Highway Police Outpost, said they arrested Habib on Cox's Bazar-Teknaf highway. He was carrying the yaba pills in five separate bags.

A case was filed with Ramu Police Station and Habib was handed over to them.