At least 30 top drug dealers, who have been in police’s “safe house” for the last seven months, are set to surrender in Cox’s Bazar today.

The second phase of the surrender programme would be held on Teknaf Government College grounds around 3:00pm. During the first phase of the programme, held on February 16, 2019, some 102 top drug dealers surrendered.

At least 18, of the 30, were named as top narcotics in a list of drug dealers prepared by the law enforcers.

Iqbal Hossain, additional superintendent of Cox’s Bazar police, confirmed The Daily Star about the second phase of the surrender programme.

Khandaker Golam Faruk, deputy inspector general (DIG) of Chattogram Range police, would be present as the chief guest at the programme.

Pradip Kumar Das, officer-in-charge of Teknaf Police Station, said they were giving chance to narcotics dealers to surrender through the programmes.

“If someone avoids taking the chance of surrender and found involved in the narcotics business, they will face stern actions,” he added.

The Daily Star managed to collect identification of 10 narcotics dealers who were in “safe home”. They are Abdul Razzaq, Redwan, Abdul Amin Abul, Mohammad Kala, Rezaul Karim, Sharif, Mohammad Shafiq, Farid Alam, Noor Kalam, and Abdur Rahim.

Meanwhile, on January 20 this year, the district police submitted charge-sheet against the 102 top narcotics smugglers who surrendered to police last year.

NEW TECHNIQUES FOR SMUGGLING YABA

Despite these surrender programmes and continuous drive against drug dealers, smuggling of the crazy pills remained almost similar, according to sources in law enforcement agencies and locals.

The smugglers are adopting new techniques and changing routes to smuggle the pills into Bangladesh from the neighboring country Myanmar, they added.

According to database of Department of Narcotics Control (DNC), around 2.52 crore yaba pills were recovered by law enforcers in first ten months of 2019.

DNC Officials said they could recover only 10 percent of total pills that were smuggled into Bangladesh.

Maj Gen Shafeenul Islam, director general of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), said the trend of trafficking yaba through the Naf river had decreased due to strong vigilance.

“Now, yaba is entering through Bangladesh’s southern part using the northern border of Myanmar,” said the BGB chief, while addressing a briefing on January 8.

On the other hand, Myanmar-based narcotics dealers have been applying “sell on credit” strategy since the law enforcers started the anti-narcotics drive in Bangladesh on May, 2018.

“For the last one year, the Myanmar based smugglers are giving the yaba pills to Bangladeshi smugglers without taking any advance payments. If the consignment is seized by the law enforcers then the Bangladeshi smugglers do not need to make any payment to their counterpart,” said a high official of police, working in Cox’s Bazar district.

In recent times, the technique also got popularity in local markets. Bangladeshi wholesale dealers are not taking any money to sell the pills to local retailers, if the consignment is seized by law enforcers before delivery, said the official, requesting anonymity.

Police claimed to have known the information after interrogating several arrestees.

Around 1,250 yaba dealers have been enlisted by law enforcers in eight upazilas of Cox’s Bazar, showed a database of the district police. Of them, 912 are from Teknaf.