KALADAN NEWS
Date: Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Drug Addicts Increasing in Arakan State
Maungdaw, Sept. 21: The young people in Arakan State
of western Burma
have now become increasingly addicted to smuggled illicit drug of Indian cough
syrup “Phensidyl”.
Nowadays, the drug smuggling of Indian cough syrup “Phensidyl”
into Arakan
State has increased, through its
borders with Bangladesh
and India, and
many youths are becoming addicted to it, said an owner of medicine shop at Maungdaw Town.
Phensidyl has become a serious concern of the parents
in Arakan State
since their teenagers are becoming interested in this illicit drug. Under the
military rule, the youth force becomes idle spending most of their time at
teashops or isolated places to take Phensidyl, he
further added.
While a bottle of 200 ml Phensidyl syrup containing
10% of codeine is sold at 40 to 45 Rupees in India, it is traded at around 10,000 to 12,000
Kyats (Burmese currency) in Arakan State. At Teknaf, a
border town of Bangladesh, the same bottle of Phensidyl syrup has been
sold at Taka 200 to 270, said a salesman at Teknaf.
Some of the Phensidyl smuggled from India
across the border to Bangladesh
are illegally carried into Arakan through the Bangladesh
border, he further added.
Today the drug smuggling of Phensidyl has increased
in northern Arakan as the drug racketeers could
easily manage the law enforcing agencies by bribing. The security
forces, sometimes, seize the bottles of Phensidyl
from petty shopkeepers and people hawking covertly in the villages and streets.
But the main dealers are spared because of the understanding between them, said
a broker.
In Burma Phensidyl
drug is prohibited, and selling or using of it is a
punishable offence liable to 12-20 years imprisonment. On September 2, 2004, police arrested a pregnant
woman of Shweza
Village, in Maungdaw Township,
while she was selling Phensidyl. Two other persons
namely Nazir Ahmed, 19, son of Abu Tayub and Bashir, son of Abul Alam, both of them from Latha village of Maungdaw Town,
who were caught red-handed with Phensidyl were
sentenced to 19 years imprisonment each in the last week August. They are petty
Phensidyl sellers, said a trader from Maungdaw town.
A leading English Daily of Bangladesh, “The Daily Star” dated 21st September
2004 reported that the Bangladesh Police seized a truck and recovered 1,000
bottles of Phensidyl worth about Taka 300,000/- at Batpara in the town of Comilla,
Bangladesh, near Indian border yesterday.
Use of Phensidyl has become a grave social problem
not only for Burma
but also for Nepal,
Bangladesh and India
since increasing number of students and youths in these countries are taking it illegally. In Bangladesh
it has become a serious issue, said another trader.
In Arakan, the policemen and youths from business
families of both Rakhaing and Rohingya
communities are among the top imbibers of the Phensidyl
syrup, he further added. ##
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