Crime, only a fence away

With complete disregard to the plainclothes policemen, the two men are taking heroin under the passenger shed. There is no fear in their eyes, and the law enforcers seem to care little about what is going on the other side of the tin fence, only suggesting that both parties are pretty much known to the situation.

The incident was photographed by a local youth, in Rajshahi city's drug-prone Guripara area, around 11:30am Sunday.

Requesting anonymity in fear of retribution, the youth said policemen regularly gathered at the shed, and in the name of conducting anti-narcotics campaigns, they did financial dealings with the drug peddlers using certain tactics.

“They go to the scene and give money to the known drug addicts for buying drugs. Then they ask them where they got the drugs and take the addicts to the drug sellers. Sometimes they make arrests, sometimes they negotiate,” he told The Daily Star.

The youth said the policemen on Sunday gave two drug addicts money and let them take drugs behind the tin fence.

Quoting witnesses, he said the local residents saw similar gatherings of police in the area a few days ago when the policemen negotiated with a drug peddler and left the area without arresting anyone.

The photo of the two policemen sitting on a concrete bench and the two addicts, including one amputee, taking heroin behind a tin fence in front of the cops was supplied to The Daily Star.

One of the cops, Assistant Sub-inspector Morshed Alam of Rajpara Police Station, who was seen wearing a green shirt, denied seeing the drug addicts.

"Everything does not come to one's notice," he said. “Some drug addicts never care for the policemen. Some of them pass night at the shed with mosquitoes biting them. They don't care for anything.”

A second policeman, Assistant Sub-inspector Masud Iqbal, was seen in the photo in a long sleeve polo shirt. “We usually take rest at the shed. I did not know there were drug addicts,” he said.

The single-hand amputee is seen in the area round the clock, and he was never arrested for being a disabled man, said Masud.

He said, “I will quit the job of police if anyone can prove I did anything wrong. Some people of the area are angry with me for leading repeated police operations.”

ASI Alam said there were two more policemen with them at that time -- ASI Rafiq and constable Monir.

They were not seen in the picture.

Police later arrested one of the two drug addicts identified as Jalal, 40, of the city's Dharampur area.

In the last few months, the Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) made nearly 200 drug peddlers of the city surrender and rehabilitated 50 of them.

Md Sorfaraj, an assistant commissioner of RMP, said police were engaged in an anti-drug campaign in Guripara area. “We sometimes locate drug sellers by asking the drug users.”

He said he did not know whether the policemen gave money to the drug addicts to buy drugs.