Ruhul Amin has now been a professional drug dealer for close to two decades now; he makes his living in Mohakhali, Dhaka where he stays along with his third wife and two children. He never knew his father’s name and only knows his mother’s work alias ‘Beauty’. This is his story:
Q. How long have you been dealing drugs for?
About 18-19 years. (With a touch of pride)
Q. How old are you?
38, probably. (He looked older than my dad and my dad is 52!)
Do you use drugs or do you just sell them?
I cant live without heroine, I sell a lot of types of drugs, depends on which drug is the most available at a certain time period, I smoke weed and have Yaba from time to time, but I mainly use Heroine, I cant live without Heroine; I don’t take much of it though, only a small amount, not a lot like other people, small dose so that I can still keep functioning.
Q. What if you don’t have that Heroine Dosage on some day? How long have you been using Heroine for?
Well, I have been addicted to Heroine for about 12 years now and yeah, there were a lot of days when I didn’t have the money to manage the drug or had the money, but the drug was too tough to obtain due to police crackdowns, political unrests, etc. On those days, I cant complete a single task, I usually lie down the whole day cause I don’t have the energy to do anything, I have incredible muscle pain, I feel drowsy and tired and I remember, back in 2007 when the army came to control of the country, I couldn’t find it anywhere for a week and I literally thought that I was going to die at that time. From the 3-4th day I started vomiting and my stomach used to hurt so bad all the time, I could not stand up, at times, I couldn’t even breath!
Q. What brought you into this life? How were you introduced to drugs? What about your parents, what role did they play?
I never knew my father because my mom used to work in a brothel at Ajimpur, my father was probably one of her customers, I never asked cause I was never close with her. I was born and brought up in the same brothel my mom used to work in and I don’t remember much of my childhood probably because I never had one, but I remember some of the other kids in the brothel, I befriended some of them, we smoked cigarettes and sniffed glue from a very young age and by the time I was 14 or 15, I started having sex with some of my mom’s colleagues and even with some of my friends moms’; I was pretty much living on my own by that time, we formed a gang like thing and started to mug, rob and extort people and then smoke ganja, sniff glue, drink alcohol or visit prostitutes. Sometimes we had enough money to do it all, sometimes we didn’t.
Q. How did you get into dealing drugs?
Well, I didn’t like the life of violence much, there was too much atrocity for me to handle and no one is your friend in that business, everyone backstabs at some point or the other. I left that life after one of my friends was caught during a robbery in which 5 or 6 of us was involved, the public literally beat him to a pulp you know and he died. I realized that there was a lot of money to be made in drugs and I thought, why not? (smile)
Q. Tell me about your marriages and your children.
Well my first wife was a whore you know, no, no I mean it, she was! (Laughs) I married her when I was 18, I was one of her regular customers and one day, I felt like I had to marry her and I did, but she soon ran away with another guy with money. Later I heard that guy stayed with her for a few days and one day made her unconscious and took away her kidney! Good for her!! I didn’t have any children with her, I didn’t get a chance to reproduce you know.
I married my second wife after I got addicted to Heroine, she was a good woman, but unfortunately she was not able to have children. I did not leave her though, she left me cause I was at the peak of my Heroine Addiction at that point and I kept spending all our money on drugs. She went to her parent’s place and never got back, I never went to get her back as well.
I married my third wife about 5 years ago; we have two children, a daughter and a son. My son is a year old and my daughter is two years old, I am very happy with them, praise to Allah.
Q. Tell me about the drugs business. How do you sell your products and how do you handle law and enforcement?
Selling the drugs is not the problem, I sell the products mostly to the rich kids who call me up and ask for whatever they want and I manage it for them if the price is right. They come with their fancy cars and pick me up, take me for a spin, I give them the drugs and they pay me the money or they just take it from the street, either way, its no problem. And with the police, it depends on what and how many you get caught with, for example, I sell a lot of drugs, If I get caught with Weed, I can get out of it pretty easily but if you get caught with Yaba, then you are into some serious shit. But, there’s a way to handle everything you know… (Gestures Money)
Q. Do you ever wonder what it would be like if your kids grow upto start using drugs?
No, they have better teachings then I had, I am going to put them in Madrasa when they grow up a bit, they will never start using drugs, ever!
Q. What if?
They wont (Confidently Put)
Q. You do know that the drugs that you sell, some of them have the potential to kill, right?
I don’t care about that, Allah decides when you die, you might die when you are having rice, but that does not mean that you go blame the farmer.
At this point of time, his cell phone rang and there was a waiting customer somewhere in need of a drug, he shook hands with us and took his leave, before leaving, he said ‘Bhai, Photo ta Chaipen Naah! Shomoshha hoite pare tahole ektu’.
We Obliged.
