The Detective Branch of police arrested four persons from inside a CNG refueling station in the capital's Jatrabari area on Monday evening and recovered 28,000 pieces of yaba pills from them.

The arrestees are Maulana Md Shahidullah, 35, an imam and teacher of Ferry Ghat Jame Mosque of Rangunia, who hails from Teknaf in Cox's Bazar; Swapan Dutta, 32 of Madaripur Sadar; Mahbub Sarder, 30, a truck driver from Jessore; and Mahmud Hossain, 30, a truck helper from Teknaf.

On information, a team of DB police conducted the drive in the filling station and arrested Swapan Dutta with 13,000 pieces of Yaba pills, said Mashiur Rahman, deputy commissioner of DB police.

"During interrogation Swapan informed us that one Shahidullah gave him the tablets from inside a small mosque," he told The Daily Star.

"We later arrested Shahidullah from a small mosque next to the filling station and questioned him."

Mashiur said that Shahidullah confessed his involvement in the yaba trade during primary information.

After gleaning information from him, the DB team later recovered around 7,000 pieces of yaba from inside the mosque.

Shahidullah later led the DB team to a mini-truck stand inside the filling station from where the law enforcers recovered an additional 8,000 pieces of yaba from inside the tool box of a mini-truck, he said.

Mashiur said that Shahidullah joined the Rangunia mosque as a teacher and imam after attaining a higher degree from India.

During his confessional statement, Shahidullah said that at the time, his monthly salary was Tk 8,000.

One of his friends, Alamgir, who was a truck owner, advised Shahidullah to take his truck to Dhaka and deliver yaba to different people to earn extra money, Mashiur said, adding he then started selling yaba after coming to Dhaka.

He would go to different mosques to conduct his illicit trade.

Earlier on December 2016, Shahidullah was arrested by Karnaphuli police in Chittagong in possession of 5,000 pieces of yaba and he served one year in jail for the crime

Upon his release from jail, he once again became involved with the yaba trade, said Mashiur.

“We first got information about Shahidullah after one of his cousins, Hafez Maulana Jamir Mahmud, was arrested on April 28 from Demra area with 2,000 pieces of yaba."

Later, the DB team started investigating into the case and finally arrested Shahidullah, he said.

DB Inspector Md Jalal Uddin of Gulshan Zonal team filed a case with Jatrabari police station yesterday in this connection. The four were placed on two day remand.