They were carrying yaba pills in milk powder containers

Some members of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Detective Branch (DB) were waiting at Jatrabari Bus Stand in the capital at around midnight on August 27, following a tip-off about drug trafficking.

At that time, three passengers got down from a bus coming from Chattogram. They took a CNG-run auto-rickshaw and started for Fakirapool.

The three passengers in lungi – a local dress – and shirts were carrying normal kitchen market bags and seemed to be newcomers to Dhaka, but their movements triggered doubts in the DB members.

They followed the vehicle and stopped it at Fakirapool, claiming the three were carrying contraband drugs – yaba.

The three pretended they knew nothing about the drug and heard of the word, yaba, for the first time.

Eventually, the policemen searched their body but found nothing suspicious. When they searched the bags full of vegetables and fruits claimed to be carrying for the "relatives" of the three people, they found three powdered milk containers. After cutting the container caps they saw powdered milk inside.

The DB members were thinking they had got a wrong tip-off and should let them go.

A few moments later, the policemen noticed a polythene bag in the middle of the containers. They opened it and discovered 20,000 pieces of yaba pills kept inside.

The police immediately arrested the three people – Mohammad Selim, 50, Mohammad Dilu alias Badu, 32, and Mohammad Ali, 22 – and filed a case against them with Motijheel Police Station.

Confirming the matter, Madhusudan Das, assistant commissioner of police, DB (Lalbagh), who led the operation, said, to dodge law enforcers nowadays, yaba traders use powdered milk containers to carry the banned pills to smuggle them into the capital.

"Efforts are being made to arrest others involved in the yaba trade ring. Hopefully, we will be able to detain them very soon," he added.