By far, it has been proved that thousands of Bangladesh-origin Muslims have been involved in the drug trade in Assam. The number of arrests by police in the last two years in the state has numerous pieces of evidence to justify this claim. Not only in Assam, Muslim drug peddlers have been arrested in large numbers in Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya.
This time, the Imam of a mosque in the Barpeta district of Assam was arrested with drugs and cash by police on June 20. Barpeta police arrested the imam with a large quantity of drugs while he was on his way to deliver the contraband. The arrested person has been identified as Arshaduz Zaman, an imam of a mosque in the Dhan Bandha area in Barpeta district. He was on his way to deliver drugs to Danakuchi on a bike (AS 01 AU 2917) when police arrested him.
Police seized 38 grams of drugs from Imam Arshaduz. They also seized Rs 1 lakh in cash from the drug peddler. The police launched an investigation against the arrested drug peddler Arshaduz Zaman and the investigation revealed some sensitive information. Arrested drug peddler Arshaduz Zaman served as the Imam of East Deurikuchi Mosque in Barpeta.
Imam Arshaduz Zaman resigned from his duties last year to start a drug business. In his greed for easy money, he became involved in drug trafficking and ran a drugs racket for over a year. As an Imam of the locality, Arshaduz was never on the radar of the police network, and it was easy for him to continue the drugs racket. But it came to light with the arrests of a few other members of the same racket.
Barpeta police came to know the involvement of Imam Arshaduz in the drugs trade and kept a close eye on him. The police team wanted to nab him with some solid evidence. On June 20, based on some specific input, Barpeta police launched an operation in the Dhan Bandha area and arrested Imam Arshaduz Zaman with a good quantity of drugs and cash money.
It should be mentioned that Assam police have arrested almost 9400 drug peddlers in the last two years as a part of its war on drugs. A total of 5600 cases have been registered in Assam under the NDPS act during the same period. Drugs worth Rupees over 1500 crore have been confiscated by Assam police in the last two years. Almost 240 kilograms of Heroin, 72000 kilograms of Ganja, 283 kilograms of Opium, 98 lakhs Psychotropic tablets,215 kilograms of Cannabis, 40 kilograms of Cocaine and 4.78 lakh bottles of banned cough syrups have been seized, and most of these were destroyed by the state police in the last two years.
It should be mentioned that the Muslim majority of the middle Assam district Nagaon has been the epicentre of the drug trade, and the number of arrests and seizures of drugs will prove that.
According to data provided by police, 47 cases have been registered, and 84 drug peddlers were arrested in the last 15 days in Nagaon district alone. 1 kg 63.978 grams heroin, 25 kg 766.06 grams of Ganja, 135 Cough Syrups, 1110 tablets, cash amount Rs. 57,240/- seized along with 13 vehicles under NDPS Act in different police stations of Nagaon District.
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