INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Nazreen Khan Mukta, a Bangladeshi cricketer, was caught with 14,000 meth pills (Representational)Chittagong, Bangladesh:
One of Bangladesh's top female cricketers could be jailed for life after being caught with 14,000 methamphetamine pills, police
said Sunday.Nazreen Khan Mukta, who plays first-grade cricket in the Dhaka Premier League, was returning from a match in the southeastern
city of Cox's Bazar when police stopped and searched the team bus at Chittagong."During our search, we caught her with 14,000 yaba pills she
had kept in packets," local police chief Pronob Chowdhury told AFP, using the local name for tablets of methamphetamine mixed with
caffeine.Chowdhury said the Ansar VDP star would be charged with drug trafficking, an offence that can carry a maximum sentence of life in
prison.Cox's Bazar borders Myanmar's conflict-plagued Rakhine state, where authorities say methamphetamine labs produce tens of millions of
yaba pills that are shipped to Bangladesh.Officials this month said drug traffickers had been more active since August, when nearly 700,000
Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar began pouring into Bangladesh.Gangs have been using the Rohingya refugees as mules and hiding
drugs in fishing boats used for ferrying the persecuted Muslims to safety.Authorities said last month that nine million yaba pills were
seized in less than three months as the refugee influx reached its peak
Nearly two million were discovered in a single haul.Dhaka has been planning to introduce the death penalty for yaba trafficking to try to
curb the drug's popularity and use.Bangladesh in 2017 seized more than 40 million pills, double the previous year's haul.(Except for the
headline, this story has not been edited by staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
