A sense of insecurity has been prevailing among people snatching, robbed and shot by assailants incident rise in broad daylight amid a spate of crimes, as reported by various media outlets over the last few days.
A money exchange trader has been shot and robbed of cash and foreign currency in broad daylight in Dhaka's Mirpur. The incident occurred at 10:00am on Tuesday in the National Swimming Pool area.
Mizanur Rahman, Assistant Commissioner of the police Mirpur Zone, said that 55-year-old trader Mahmudul Islam has been admitted to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital with a bullet wound on the left side of his waist, but is out of danger.
Mahmudul lives in a house behind the Mirpur Fire Service and Civil Defence Complex, the police official said. He and his brother-in-law left home carrying three bags of cash and foreign currency in the morning.
Mizanur said criminals on a motorcycle ambushed them midway between the Swimming Pool and the Fire Service complex, fired off one shot, and snatched the bags. Mahmudul told police nearly Tk 2.2 million had been stolen from him.
Asked how many attackers had been on the motorcycle, Mizanur said: "We are trying to collect CCTV camera footage, identify the attackers, and determine how many were on the motorcycle."
A video of the incident shows two people with weapons, one of whom fires a shot. The trader is seen immediately falling to the ground afterwards.
One of the armed men then got on a motorcycle which already had two other people on it. The other man with the weapon then moved out of the frame.
A video showing muggers snatching the bag of a young man in broad daylight while wielding machetes has gone viral on the social media. Police say the incident took place in the afternoon on May 18 at Greenway Lane in Dhaka's Moghbazar. The victim is Abdullah, a youth from Cumilla.
Md Raju, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Hatirjheel Police Station, said the incident is from about a week ago but the victim did not report it to the police. After the video went viral online, police tracked the victim down, and he filed a case with the police station around midnight on Sunday. OC Md Raju said that efforts are on to nab the three muggers.
In another incident BNP leader Kamrul Ahsan Sadhan was shot dead by assailants in the Gudaraghat area of Dhaka's Badda Sunday night (May 25). The victim was the Joint Secretary of the Gulshan Thana unit of the BNP.
According to police and witnesses, the incident took place around 10:06pm near a tea stall opposite to the office of former commissioner Kayum on Road No 4 in the Gudaraghat area.
According to eyewitnesses, Sadhan was sitting at a tea stall with a few others when two masked assailants opened fire on him indiscriminately. He was struck by four to five bullets in the chest and back, causing him to fall from his chair. The assailants fled the scene while firing blank shots to make good their escape.
Badda Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Saiful Islam confirmed the incident to the Daily Observer and said the two attackers were wearing masks and fired multiple round of shots. Police are investigating the incident to identify and apprehend those responsible.
The attack comes just two weeks after the murder of Shahriar Alam Shammo, a 25-year-old Dhaka University student and leader of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, BNP's student front. He was stabbed to death near Suhrawardy Udyan on May 13, sparking outrage on the campus and beyond.
The recent wave of violence also includes the killings of two young men -- Nurul Islam, 26, a freelance photographer and Samiur Rahman, 23, a student of Dr Maleka University College -- in separate incidents in the capital's Shankar and Jigatala areas on May 16.
According to Police Headquarters data, violent crime has seen a significant surge in Dhaka between January and April compared to the same period last year.
Between January and April this year, 175 robbery cases were recorded -- almost double from last year's 94. Dacoity cases jumped over three-folds from seven to 24 in the same period this year compared to last year. Most alarmingly, murder cases nearly tripled -- from 47 last year to 136 this year.
