We are shocked that a syndicate of members of the police force were reportedly involved in smuggling Yaba on Cox's Bazar-Dhaka route. According to Rab, which arrested ASI Mahfuzur Rahman of the Special Branch, the syndicate had been using their professional identity as law enforcers to ensure safe passage and sale of drugs. On Saturday night, the ASI's father's car was found with 6.8 lakh pills, worth Tk. 27.20 crore. It appears that the drugs were being passed from one policeman in the chain to another, from Cox's Bazar to Chittagong and finally to Dhaka. 

With almost 50 lakh Yaba pills trafficked into the country and consumed every day, Yaba trade is now an organised industry with myriad networks that extend all throughout the country to ensure the free movement of illicit drugs from producers to consumers, involving a wide range of players, from crime syndicates to powerful politicians. That members of law enforcement agencies should also be implicated in the drug trade is a matter of great concern. It is not the first time that there have been allegations of police involvement. According to reports published previously in this newspaper, the drug business in the city takes place under the watch of law enforcers, with peddlers allegedly paying hefty sums to the latter as bribes to conduct their business. 

While we applaud the latest bust, we urge concerned authorities to take this incident as a wake-up call for rooting out the deviants within the agencies. If law enforcers responsible for stopping this trade are the very ones making a business out it, we cannot effectively address the menacing reality of Yaba trade in Bangladesh.