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Dhaka city dwellers are still in fear of mugging, robbery and theft though law enforcement and security agencies are conducting joint and special drives and setting up checkpoints at places in the city.

The joint and special drives conducted by the law enforcement agencies, however, have given relief to the residents of some areas, including Mohammadpur and Dhanmondi, but people in other areas are still in fear due to a little patrolling at night and in the morning.

The law and order situation started to deteriorate in the city since the month of August in the absence of police patrolling in most of the areas.   

‘We cannot move outside our home after evening and in the morning in fear of muggers. We seldom see police patrolling in our area,’ Farhan Alam Hridoy, a resident at Merul Badda told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·. 

‘Nowadays, especially at night, I avoid going to the Kalshi area in fear of muggers,’ Al-Amin Sourav, a resident at Mirpur-6, said.

‘In case of any emergency, I use Mirpur-12 main road. I try to avoid Kalshi road,’ he explained.  

A senior official of Dhaka Metropolitan Police told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that they had set up 11 permanent checkpoints in the city. The places include Signboard, Demra, Khilkhet, Abdullahpur and Dhour at Ashulia.

‘If there is any emergency, we take help from the Army and other forces. The checkpoints are operated every day in two shifts – one between 4:00pm to 12:00 night and the other between 12:00 night and 8:00am,’ the DMP official said.

He said that they were operating some temporary checkpoints at some other points under the metropolitan police’s jurisdiction.

Though the number of criminal activities such as theft, robbery, mugging, burglary, abduction, and murder has increased, the reported cases with the police are low as many are not inclined to report the incidents to the police or police avoid recording cases, police officials and city dwellers, including a number of victims said.

According to DMP data, five incidents of robbery, 21 mugging, and 48 incidents of burglary were reported in October and five incidents of robbery, 14 mugging, and 33 incidents of burglary were reported in September.

At the night following November 2, a mugger took away Tk 25,000 from a journalist at gunpoint in the capital’s Moghbazar Wireless area.

‘I cannot forget the incident. The place has been known to me since 2008. I have never faced such a situation,’ said victim AKM Moinuddin, a diplomatic correspondent of the United News of Bangladesh.

He said on November 6 that he had not filed any case so far in this connection.

In the past two months, 206 murder cases – 148 in September and 58 in October – were reported in the Dhaka metropolitan area. 37 abduction cases - 22 in September and 15 in October – were also reported.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner for media and public relations Muhammad Talebur Rahman, however, said that 68 murder incidents - 47 in September and 21 in October - were reported in the DMP area.

‘Actually, families of the victims of murder during the July-August uprising could not file cases immediately after the incidents due to the country’s volatile situation. Most of the murder cases recorded in September and October were based on the incidents that happened in July and August,’ he said.

Although the government measures lowered the number of petty crimes in the past few days, the government could not contain extortion from vendors on footpaths, shops in kitchen markets and different types of vehicles.

Former inspector general of police Nur Mohammad said that the police were yet to resume their activities fully as many in the force committed ‘killings and other crimes’ during the student-mass uprising.

‘People in the country have lost faith in police and many police members are still traumatised due to the violence they saw during the uprising…We need to bring efficient officers to Dhaka as working in the rural areas and that in the capital city are different in nature,’ he said.

He urged the police to create social awareness against crimes by engaging eminent personalities, students and masses in certain areas.

After the fall of the Awami League regime amid a student-mass uprising on August 5, the interim government, led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, was formed on August 8. But the interim government largely failed to keep the law and order situation under control in the past three months.

The police often try to avoid recording cases in connection with incidents of crimes, while victims themselves also avoid to file cases, mainly to evade the lengthy litigation system and the expenses that come with the process, according to victims’ accounts.

Khalilur Rahman, a 70-year-old retired food inspector, became a victim of theft as nearly Tk 1 lakh of his pension money was stolen from his bag inside the Sonali Bank’s College Gate branch in the capital’s Mohammadpur area on October 24.

The retired government official, who is a cancer patient, said on November 4 that he lodged a general diary with the Mohammadpur Police Station but was not willing to file any case to save time and expenditure of extra money and to avert legal complexities and hassles.

Atia Akter, the mother of 13-year-old Azmir Sharif who sustained bullet injuries during a gunfight between two groups in the Bauniabadh area on October 30, alleged that the officials at Pallabi Police Station refused to record her case.

Talking to ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· on October 30 outside the Pallabi Police Station, she said that her injured son was then undergoing treatment at the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation in the capital’s Agargaon area.

DMP DC Talebur Rahman told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that they would take action against police officials found to be involved in denying victims if they get specific allegations.

At least 217 people were arrested in 167 cases for possessing illegal firearms in joint drives conducted between September 4 and October 31.

Officials at the Police Headquarters said that they also seized 369 firearms in the drives jointly conducted by the police, army, Rapid Action Battalion, Border Guard Bangladesh, and Ansar during the period.

On September 7, the home ministry said that a total of 5,818 weapons of different types were looted from different police stations across the country, and 3,993 were recovered till September 5.

The police are yet to recover 1,885 weapons and 2,94,405 rounds of ammunition, the police headquarters added.

The capital’s Mohammadpur area saw the worst deterioration in the law and order situation, forcing the army, the police, and the Rapid Action Battalion to conduct joint drives over the past week.

At least 180 people were arrested and a number of firearms were recovered during the special drives in seven days ending November 2.

Of the five reported robbery incidents in the city in October, three were filed with the Mohammadpur Police Station.

DMP Tejgaon Division deputy commissioner Mohammad Ruhul Kabir Khan, however, said that the special drives had given some relief to the residents in the Mohammadpur area.

DMP in a release said that the Airport police arrested 78 professional muggers in October.

On October 30, at least 13 people, mostly students of different colleges and universities, were arrested for trying to commit robbery at an apartment building in the city’s Dhanmondi area.