Dibrugarh, Oct. 22: The drug cartel in Upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district is flourishing once again with drug dealers deploying new agents and adopting covert tactics to evade the police net.

Police sources said Dibrugarh’s most notorious drug dealer Sheikh Elahi, who has been released on bail, has resumed his business by recruiting rickshawpullers as agents who are “happy to earn hefty amounts. This tactic allows him to confuse the police as well as maintain a cover,” the sources claimed.

Elahi was arrested on a number of occasions earlier but later released on bail. His latest arrest, along with a few of his accomplices, was in May this year. Although Elahi’s second wife managed to run his business when Elahi was behind bars, the anti-narcotics cell of the Dibrugarh police had nevertheless managed to put a spanner in the trade.

Dibrugarh is infamous as the “drugs capital of Assam”. This major Upper Assam town earned this sobriquet after one Badshah Khan appeared on the scene in the Eighties to set up a well-oiled drug network. Sheikh Elahi stormed into the scene after Khan’s death.

“Drug dealers smuggle in brown sugar from states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan into Guwahati by train. Thereafter, they are brought into Tinsukia and Dibrugarh by deluxe night buses,” the sources alleged. The brown sugar which is packed in small sachets is carefully “sealed” into toothpowder packs, infant food and dry fruit tins to avoid seizure by the police,” they added.

It is alleged that Elahi has started expanding his empire into the neighbouring states of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, apart from foraying into the north bank districts of Lakhimpur and Dhemaji. For the north bank business, country boatsmen are used as ferrying agents. According to the sources, fingers of allegation also point towards a few lower grade NF Railway employees who help drug peddlers bring in drugs into the state.

Daily transactions in the drugs business in Assam gross into lakhs of rupees, the sources said.

Bilateral trade

The successful conclusion of the first business summit between industrial magnates and political leaders of Bangladesh and India’s Northeastern states held in Chittagong on October 17 and 18 has raised prospects of a major boost in bilateral trade between Bangladesh and northeastern states.

The two-day summit, attended by business representatives, officials and ministers of commerce and industries of both the countries, formed a study group headed by president of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) Amir Humayun Mohammed Chowdhury to assess the business potential between Bangladesh and Northeast states. The study group will submit a detailed report within three months, reports our Agartala correspondent.

“The report will be placed in the next meeting of the joint Indo-Bangla economic commission slated to come off in Dhaka in January next year,” Tripura chief secretary V. Thulasidas said. He said the summit at Chittagong’s Agrabad had been jointly sponsored by the Indian high commission in Dhaka and the CCCI .