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Drug peddling goes on

Addicts find little or no difficulty in getting drug despite police watch at Karwan Bazar slum

Shaheen Mollah and Zyma Islam
The Karwan Bazar railway slum has been the epicentre of the drugs trade in the country, which has seen the crime flourish even amid frequent police raids in recent months.
Law enforcers of nearby Tejgaon and Tejgaon police stations in fact safeguard the illegal trade in exchange for bribes, local people and some drugs peddlers have said.
Police cases and jail terms are perceived by traders as merely financial burdens - not as the deterrent they are meant to be, they added.
The crime spot stretches over around half a kilometre on both sides of the railway tracks from Tejgaon rail gate to Karwan Bazar Christian Para.
The illegal trade has been going on here for more than 20 years. Before the raids began in March, traders had been seen selling drugs in the open just
beside the rail tracks.
Now the trading takes place secretly in the alleys of Christian Para, Mollah Para and Shutkir Arot, several drug peddlers said.
"Those alleys are often avoided by the patrolling police because many of these areas remain waterlogged (throughout the year]," said a female drug peddler, apparently in her late 30's, who lives right beside the tracks.
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Yaba trade is done slightly more discreetly by peddlers who stand at specific spots and go through the process, the Daily Star correspondents observed in their months-long investigation.
At least 50 sellers supply Yaba tablets to traders coming from different districts atTk 120 toTk 350 per piece.
As many as 3,000 to 4,000 of these pink tablets are sold every day in the slum while traders make sales of marijuana worth Tk 5 lakh a day, sources said.
A handful of policemen take bribes of at least Tk 1 lakh a week from the peddlers to let the trading go undisturbed, local people and peddlers told The Daily Star. Even if the law enforcers appear in plainclothes, they can be easily identified by the wireless sets they carry, they said.
Your correspondents on the night of April 5 observed Assistant Subinspector of Tejgaon Industrial Police Station Shahin Alam walking round the place in uniform and talking to several drug peddlers.
On February 3, Abul Jafar Manik, the then sub-inspector of Tejgaon Police Station, was seen there, flanked by two more unidentified policemen.
In both cases, locals alleged that the law enforcers had been collecting their weekly sum from peddlers.
Both Manik and Shahin, however, denied doing so.
Manik said he had been looking for an accused in a case. He has recently been transferred to Rayerbazar Police Outpost.
Deputy Commissioner of Tejgaon division Biplob Kumar Sarkar said he had received complaints against sev-
eral policemen.
Seven teams of the narcotics control department have launched drives that go on from 6:00am to 10:00pm every day to rein in the drugs trade, said Mofazzal Hossain, in-charge of the Tejgaon circle narcotics department.
Three teams are always deployed there. Raids are conducted by the other four. A mobile court is also in place along with the teams that conduct the raids. The traders are no longer being sued or fined; they are straightaway being put in jail, Mofazzal said.
The teams handed down jail terms of a minimum of six months to more than 50 drug peddlers in March, he added.
The narcotics control officials also receive bribes on a regular basis, peddlers said.
Peeking through a window of a house beside the rail tracks last month, one of the correspondents saw a pile of marijuana laid out on the bed.
The same month he observed a raid conducted by the Rapid Action Battalion. A middle-aged woman was seen tapping a Rab member on the shoulder, asking him if he wanted marijuana.
Asked why she dared to sell drugs during the raid, the woman replied, "My son was put in jail. I need to get enough money to bail him out."
The more influential drug lords also use the police to ensure their oligopoly in the business, said a drug peddler, aged around 40, who has been trading in drugs for 10 years.
"My family and I have been accused in some 15 cases so far by police on instructions of influential drug lords because they are trying to keep me from this business," he said.