AGARTALA, December 12 (TIWN): The flourishing illegal trade and business along the Indo-Bangladesh border areas of the four northeastern states has been draining out huge amount of wealth from the country. The fence on the Tripura-Bangladesh border being erected to block infiltrators and militants, is likely to hurt a bustling illegal trade that's not just fuelling the local economy and fattening chemists in the border state but spawning a narcotics network.

Due to all the flourishing illegal trade a large section of youths of the city are consuming the Contraband items like Phensedyl, corex and banded medicinal Capsules/tablets etc, due to the easy availability of these Contraband items in local markets. On the issue of narcotics, no amount of laws seems to be enough to reign in the production and distribution of banned substances. Most of the shops at M.G. Bazaar are selling these Contraband items and some shops at Battala are selling ganja (cannabis) openly infront of the police. But the police are not taking any major steps to stop this illegal business due to under table connection between the police and the smugglers, a highly placed source of police department said.

 Police are well aware of the situation but they did not any action against, the source added. The Smugglers networks are very deep-rooted and widespread. The smuggling of these contraband items would, in future, become a major deterrent to better Indo-Bangla relations, the source added.

Such is the boom in the business that a local pharmacy owner goes all the way to the Grand Hotel in Kolkata for a haircut. Another visits a five-star hotel every weekend for gambling - splurging money made from selling tranquilisers like valium 10, alzolam, alprazolam and diazepam, along with cough syrups like corax and phensedyl.  Not that the business is totally new. Indian medicines were always smuggled into Bangladesh. But now the trade is moving to cannabis. Rows and rows of ganja plants in Konabon, Devipur, Madhupur and Batodola (all in Tripura) are tended just for consumers in Bangladesh, said source.