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More than 150 Yaba smugglers are “ready” to surrender by taking the opportunity given by the government amid a crackdown on drugs, Cox’s Bazar police say.
The authorities are organising an event marking the surrender in the southeastern district bordering Myanmar where the methamphetamine tablets are produced.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal will attend the programme on Saturday, according to Cox’s Bazar Superintendent of Police ABM Masud.
The venue is the Teknaf Pilot High School ground and the time 10am. The home minister will travel to the district a day before the programme.
Inspector General of Police Mohammad Javed Patwary is also coming to Cox’s Bazar on Thursday to inspect the preparations for the programme, the SP said.
More than 150 listed and identified Yaba smugglers have gathered at a place which SP Masud called “a safe custody” arranged by the smugglers themselves ahead of the surrender.
“Many others are communicating with police and other related people,” he added.
The Yaba smugglers who are surrendering will be supported to return to normal life, the police officer said.
He denied revealing the exact number of smugglers at the “safe custody” and the conditions for their return to normal life “due to strategic reasons”.
“Cases will be started if they don’t return to normal activities. We’ll look into their cases if they don’t return to normal life,” Home Minister Kamal had earlier told bdnews24.com when asked about the possible conditions of their surrender.
He was also asked whether there were any possibilities that the fortunes they have made through the illegal drug trade, which cost lives of at least 50 suspects only in Cox’s Bazar during anti-drug drives in recent months, will be legitimised through the surrender.
The Anti-Corruption Commission or the National Board of Revenue will take care of the assets issue, Kamal had replied.
Deaths of suspected drug dealers, killed in so-called shootouts with police, have continued to be reported from across Bangladesh since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the anti-drug operations in May last year.
Parliament on Oct 27 last year passed a law with death as the maximum penalty for drug offences related to over 5 grams of methamphetamine amid the deadly crackdown.
As the smuggling proved difficult to contain, the government began discussing the possibility of allowing them to surrender. The idea began to gain ground when a group of Yabas mugglers based in Cox’s Bazar contacted police to surrender.
Anamul Hoque, a union council member from Teknaf who police identified as a drug trader, announced his surrender on Facebook on Jan 15, triggering huge attention to the issue.
SP Masud said the smugglers first contacted journalist MM Akram Hossain of Channel-24 during his recent visit to a prison.
“The journalist then contacted law-enforcers and others in the administration. Police then started moving,” the SP said.
Police wrote an official letter to the higher authorities about ‘the proposal’ from the Yaba businessmen, said Masud.
Of those listed as Yaba traders by police, 1,151 individuals are based in Cox’s Bazar. Of them, 73 are identified as ‘top Yaba bosses’.
These are mostly influential people from Teknaf, a sub-district in Cox’s Bazar, and include some elected public representatives, reports bdnews24.com.
Former MP and ruling Awami League leader in Cox’s Bazar, Abdur Rahman Bodi, reportedly tops the government list of drug lords who smuggle Yaba.
His five brothers Abdus Shukkur, Abdul Amin, Mujibur Rahman, Mohammad Shafique and Mohammad Faysal, nephew Shahedur Rahman Nipu, and relatives Shahed Kamal and Kamrul Hasan Russell also feature on the list, according to reports.
But Bodi has always denied the reported claims. On Jan 10, he gave the Yaba smugglers a five-day ultimatum to surrender.
His wife Shahin Akhter, who now represents the Teknaf-Ukhia constituency in parliament, threatened the smugglers with “dire consequences” if they did not surrender.