Numerous muggings are occurring on a daily basis in the capital, but majority of these incidents go unreported. Victims are getting killed and injured by muggers. Most of the mugging incidents go unreported as victims are generally reluctant to lodge complaints with the police in connection with such incidents.
Gangs of muggers usually target people returning from abroad and on their way to and from work, especially from midnight till dawn, said victims.
Tk 15 lakh was mugged from an import oriented company staff at Gulshan of the capital on May 10. The Dhaka Metropolitan Detective Police investigated the incident and found that the robbery was planned far away from America.
The robbery happened according to the plan of Sakhawat Hossain Chanchal and Mehdi Hasan, fugitive terrorists hiding in America. They were monitoring the incident by following the video footage of the CCTV. According to the footage, four robbers who robbed the money were all cadres sent by Chanchal and Mehdi. DB arrested four people in connection with the robbery and gets sensational information from them.
In this regard, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner (DB) Harun Or Rashid said that some people are involved in terrorist activities in Gulshan-Badda area. Many are also involved in extortion. We have arrested some such people. After being arrested, they almost always say that they are the followers of Mehadi.
According to DMP statistics show that mugging incidents have been on the rise for the past few years, with the highest 176 cases of snatching reported in 2020. Earlier, 83 such cases were reported in 2018 and 119 in 2019.
The police said that they had received complaints about 83 mugging incidents in Dhaka and adjacent areas in the first seven months of 2021 while at least 10 victims were killed by muggers in the first 10.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested 10 members of a snatching gang during separate drives in the city's Mohammadpur, Hazaribagh and Tejgaon areas.
Acting on a tip-off, separate teams of RAB-2 arrested the snatchers conducting raids in the city's Mohammadpur, Hazaribagh and Tejgaon areas on Wednesday night, Shiab Karim, senior assistant director (Media) of RAB-2, said.
In a bid to tackle growing incidents of mugging, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Chief Golam Khandker Faruq has announced that law enforcement will initiate probes when such a crime is reported, even if no formal complaint is lodged.
Khandker Golam Faruq also said the law enforcement agency's ongoing special drive will be continuing until the capital becomes free of muggers. "We have names of around six thousand muggers in our database. Our job is to arrest them and bringing them to justice. We arrest them and send them to jail. But they come out after securing bail through the legal process," he said Maniruzzaman Talukdar, 45, a constable of Tejgaon traffic division, sustained severe injuries after miscreants stabbed him multiple times on Indira Road in Dhaka's Farmgate area early Saturday.
The DMP commissioner said they have arrested all the criminals involved in the killing of police constable Moniruzzaman and two involved in the attack on journalist Rakibul Hasan.
On Tuesday, Commissioner Faruq visited at the National Orthopedic Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre. He assured the public that the police would continue their relentless campaign to rid Dhaka of muggers and make the city safer for all residents.
Faruq outlined the police's 'pro-active' approach to eliminating muggings in the city as most incidents are not reported. "Perhaps, someone has had their mobile phone taken, or someone has been robbed of Tk 500. Due to the hassles of filing a case, they do not want to come forward.
"Now, we have given strict orders not to let a single incident go untraced. Even when there is no complainant, the police will record a case as the plaintiff." The DMP chief added that in the space of three days since Monday, 80 per cent of the incidents related to mugging in Dhaka had been registered as cases by the police. At least 15 muggers have also been arrested.
