Myanmar will close Yaba factories

Holding meetings with Myanmar, Bangladesh hopes the neighbouring country will shut down factories along the bordering areas producing yaba, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said yesterday.

"Our country does not make drugs like yaba and Phensedyl but we are not free from their harms," he said, adding that after discussions, India shut down many Phensedyl factories in the bordering areas.

He was addressing as the chief guest a programme Rapid Action Battalion (Rab)-7 organised at its Chittagong city headquarters at Patenga to destroy a huge amount of seized drugs.

Awami League leader Mohiuddin Chowdhury and lawmaker MA Latif spoke on the occasion but not to each other. The former has declared the latter persona non grata in Chittagong.

On January 30, on the occasion of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to Chittagong, festoons and banners with a distorted image of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were put up in Patenga and Bandar areas on behalf of MA Latif.

Latif claimed that he did not know the designer had distorted the photo where the head of Bangabandhu was placed on the body of Latif.

Scathingly criticising Latif at a public rally on February 15 for the mistake, Mohiuddin declared Latif persona non grata and demanded the arrest of the lawmaker within 15 days.

Holding some political leaders responsible for drug peddling, Chittagong city Mayor AJM Nasir Uddin said party members should be ousted if they took and peddled illicit drugs.

"If we can drive them out, nobody would dare run the illegal business in their areas," he added.

Mohiuddin and Latif emphasised anti-drug drives, awareness campaigns, strict monitoring by guardians and proper rehabilitation programmes for the addicts.

In the presence of high-ups of government offices and law enforcement agencies, different kinds of drug items worth Tk 182 crore were destroyed on the Rab-7 headquarters premises.

The destroyed items included 45,29,200 yaba pills, 4,319 bottles of  Phensedyl, 239 bottles of foreign liquor and 314 cans of beer seized from across Chittagong.

Rab Director General (DG) Benazir Ahmed and Rab-7's Commanding Officer Lt Col Miftah Uddin Ahmed also spoke at the programme.