Yaba ads online!

Advertisements for the banned drug, Yaba, are now online. These ads are tucked into comments made on a website where the dealers and buyers exchange mobile phone numbers.

The website also is filled with vulgar, objectionable and perverted comments where many girls' phone numbers are being posted with ill-intent.

This website, operated from Canada, is run like social media page with a separate space for Bangladeshi nationals. It has topic-based pages for various comments and exchanges. Ads for buying and selling Yaba tablets appeared in the comments on five pages of this site. For example, "I sell Yaba wholesale", "Yaba easily available, contact...", "I need Yaba," etc.

Yaba ads first appeared on this site on 1 March 2011. The last ad appeared on 13 September 2014. There are over a hundred such ads on this site.

A person responding to a mobile phone number given on the site for Yaba sales, says his name is Shafi. He asks whether we want wholesale or retail. When told wholesale, he says, "I am in Comilla. If you come half way, I'll meet you at Gauripur or Daudkandi. Or if you send the money, I'll send it through courier service." The prices vary according to type of Yaba. He says he has people in Dhaka, but there is a bit of a problem. "I don't give out their numbers to unknown persons. You can trust me. You send the money and I'll deliver the pills."

In another ad it says that they are women sellers of Yaba. When the given number was called, a female voice replied, saying, "Call later."

Another persona named Sajid has posted up a Yaba price list on the site. When that number was called in the pretext of a buyer, a voice from the other side asked to send money.

Some ads ask for Yaba. When phoned, one such advertiser says, "I needed Yaba that's why I put up the ad. I've got it now. I don't need it any more."

Two persons responding to the numbers in the ads said they had not given their number anywhere. Someone was harassing them by posting up their numbers.

BTRC, DB blind: Sarwar Alam, head of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC)'s media wing, says, "It is an alarming matter if such a site exists." After being given the website details, he calls back after half an hour to say, "This is a serious crime. I have brought it to the attention of the authorities. Such sites cannot be allowed."

The law-enforcement agencies hadn't seen this either. When the website was brought to the attention of Sanwar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of the Detective Branch (DB) of police, he said, "I had heard that the Internet was being used for drug dealing, giving out mobile numbers and such harassment. But we had never seen any specific site. I will check the site and take action."