DHAKA: A suspected female drug dealer was shot dead in the Bangladeshi capital as police said the city’s supply of illegal narcotics was now almost entirely in the hands of a female network of “drug queens”.

Nazma Akhter Kakoli, a 35-year-old mother, was shot dead by unidentified assailants outside her home in Dhaka’s Mirpur district on Sunday, said a police official who requested anonymity.

The officer said she appeared to have been killed by rivals who wanted to take control of her territory.

“Over the last six months, we have caught at least 21 drug queens and sent them to jail,” added Zafrullah Kazal, assistant director of Dhaka’s narcotics and drug control department.

“They may be illiterate, but these ladies control most of the city’s drug business through a wide network of vendors,” he added.

A drug control official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said women began to take over the supply business several years ago.

The women drug barons use a range of tactics to avoid detection.

“They often engage street urchins as vendors or other women who wear veils and burqas to sell and carry the drugs,” he said.

Drug addiction is rising steadily in Bangladesh and a recent US Department of Narcotics Control study estimated the number of heroin addicts at around two million people.

In March, the US State Department in its annual report on global drug trafficking said anecdotal evidence suggested drug abuse in Bangladesh was no longer confined to the ultra-poor.

It said it appeared to be becoming a “major problem” among the wealthy and well educated in the mainly Muslim nation of 140 million people.

Apart from heroin, cough syrup containing the painkiller drug codeine is also widely used by addicts in Bangladesh.—AFP