TDS Desk:

The Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) has prepared a policy outlining the inevitability of equipping the agency members with firearms to ensure their protection during the drives against the notorious drug peddlers.

The DNC sent the recently formulated “Department of Narcotics Control Firearms Collection and Use Policy, 2024” to the home ministry on 19 September last, two days after the Home Affairs Adviser visited the DNC office and hinted to give the force firearms along with required training to conduct successful and risk-free drives against illegal drugs.

“We’ve sent the policy to the home ministry on 19 September,” Director General of the DNC Khondoker Mostafizur Rahman told BSS.

He said they have suggested to give pistol from director general (DG) to sub-inspectors while shotgun for the assistant sub-inspectors (ASI) to sepoys.

Asked about the justification of giving firearms to them, the DNC chief said, “In many cases DNC personnel are assaulted during the drives against narcotics due to having no firearms. The firearms for the DNC personnel are needed to ensure their safety and conduct operations successfully against the drug peddlers.”

He continued that many of the agency personnel become frightened to conduct drives in the city’s Geneva Camp in Mohammadpur and ‘Chanpara Slum’ near Demra as the drug peddlers there are equipped with firearms.

So far two DNC persons were killed and 124 others suffered injuries during the drives against narcotics since 2014, according to available statistics of the DNC.

Shamim Ahamed, Deputy Director of Dhaka Metro North who has long been working at field level, has narrated the necessity of giving the DNC personnel firearms mentioning several incidents of clashes with the drug peddlers.

“The drug business across the globe is an organised crime and the drug peddlers are nowadays using sophisticated firearms. They even don’t care to attack the DNC personnel with lethal local weapons and sticks as they know that we are not entitled to getting firearms,” he said.

He said officials dealing with narcotics in neighbouring India, Myanmar and Pakistan have also been equipped with firearms.

The matter of enabling the DNC personnel to use firearms has been discussed since 2007 in the DNC Board led by late Dr Zafar Ullah Kazol. But, it did not see the light due to lack of initiatives from the government side.

Later on 30 June 2021, the DNC advisory council formed a five-member committee headed by then senior secretary of Security Services Division of the home ministry.

In the latest move in July this year, a five-member committee was formed to devise a policy by one month to provide the DNC personnel with firearms.

The committee was entrusted with responsibility to decide who will get firearms, the method of preserving those, and giving training to the users of the firearms.

The DNC DG said many have argued that the DNC personnel should be given firearms first, then training while some others for giving training first, then firearms.