Open drug market thriving near anti-narcotics agency

“What do you need? Yaba, Phensedyl, heroine or weed?”

That is the kind of question one would likely to come across once he takes a walk through Bastuhara Colony, a slum in Chittagong city's Kotwali area.

However, if a stranger, he would be greeted by armed youths guarding the entrance of what is actually home to the poor but has grown into a notorious drug market in the last few years.

If a buyer, he would be let in, and the sellers would be ready with drugs in their hands to offer.

Sadly, this drug market has been thriving in a place which adjoins the office of the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC), the government agency that fights the menace.

Both police and DNC claim that they regularly conduct drives in the area but could not arrest anyone.

“We conduct taskforce drives in the area once a month. We recovered around one thousand Phensedylbottles, some cannabis and Yaba in the last one year but no drug traders could be arrested,” said DNC Deputy Director Ali Aslam.

The drug dealers have paid sources deployed around the slum; whenever they come across any law enforcer they inform the drug dealers; that's why the culprits could not be arrested, said Sub-inspector Nuruzzaman of Kotwali Police Station.

This correspondent visited the area several times in the last two months and saw drugs were put on open sale. To keep the business smooth, 20-30 youths armed with sharp weapons and firearms patrol the area.

According to the residents,300 to 500 customers visit the slum daily.

On condition of anonymity, a police sub-inspector said the entire drug hub of Bastuhara and adjacent Barisal slum, another narcotics market, is controlled by one Faruk, 40, of Patiya, from the underground.

But at the field level, two gangs used to fight over the control of the market.

On July 6, one Shahfiqul Islam, 21, a member of the gang led by one Ruhul Amin, was allegedly shot and stabbed dead by the group led by one Kamal. Later a murder case was filed against Kamal and others, but Kamal has recently got out of jail.

The rivalry saw a revival on September 25, when Kamal's gang ousted Ruhul Amin's from Bastuhara colony after a clash, and gained total control of the drug market.

The dwellers of the slum, where nearly 500 families live,protested the open drug peddling in the slum and held a human chain on September 26, demanding that it be freed from this menace.

But the drug gangs of Bastuhara still outsmart the law enforcers.