683 July jailbreakers still at large

Nearly two years after prisons were breached during the July Uprising that toppled the Awami League government, 683 of the 2,240 inmates who escaped remain still at large, including death-row convicts and suspected militants.

The prison breakouts have left behind a troubling trail of fugitives, firearms and ammunition. While most of the escapees have been recaptured, 683 remain missing and 20 firearms looted from prisons have yet to be recovered.

According to the Department of Prisons, 69 of the fugitives are considered high-risk - 60 are death-row convicts and nine are identified as militants.

Inspector General of Prisons Brigadier General Syed Md Motaher Hossain said police and the Rapid Action Battalion were continuing operations to track down the fugitives. He, however, said he did not see any immediate threat of a security breach inside prisons, though the wider law-and-order situation remained a concern.

The scale of the prison breaches has left a lingering security problem for authorities. Of 94 Chinese rifles and shotguns looted from different prisons during the attacks, 20 remain unrecovered, according to prison officials. Nowhere is the unfinished business more stark than in Sherpur. 

On August 5, 2024, a mob stormed Sherpur District Jail, forcing open its gates as fires spread through parts of the compound. Prisoners poured out of the facility amid the chaos. Of the 518 inmates who escaped, only 172 have since been recaptured. 

The remaining 346 are still at large, said Mohammad Abdus Selim, the acting jailer. The attack destroyed more than prison walls and records. It stripped the facility of equipment, supplies and vital documents, leaving authorities to reconstruct much of what was lost.

 “All important documents were burned down during the attack,” Selim said. An employee managed to save only a laptop containing the Prison Intelligence Data File, he said. That digital record has since become an important tool in efforts to identify and locate the fugitives.

 A prison turned into a crime scene The Sherpur jail was attacked as the country descended into widespread unrest on August 5, 2024. Armed with sticks and other weapons, the mob entered the compound, broke through the gates and set several sections of the prison on fire. Prison staff evacuated as the situation became too dangerous to remain inside. 

The attackers looted almost everything they could carry away, officials said-including blankets, pillows, fans, CCTV cameras, medicines, furniture and sacks of food. The residence of Lipi Rani Saha, then the jailer, was also attacked and valuables were taken. The initial damage assessment by the Public Works Department and other authorities put the cost of destruction and looting at about Tk 3 crore. After repairs and restoration, the prison reopened on December 12, 2024. 

But the fugitives did not return with it. Weapons recovered, ammunition still missing Authorities say the firearms taken from Sherpur jail have been recovered. But ammunition remains missing. All nine Chinese rifles and shotguns looted from the jail have been recovered, officials said. 

However, 844 Chinese-rifle bullets remain unaccounted for. Of the 331 shotgun bullets that were taken, only 32 have been recovered. The figures are part of a wider national problem. Twenty firearms looted from prisons during the unrest remain missing, according to the Department of Prisons. For security agencies, the combination of missing fugitives and missing ammunition presents a particularly difficult challenge.
 
Motaher Hossain said RAB and police were continuing operations and periodically recapturing escaped prisoners. He said he did not see an immediate threat of a security breach inside the country’s prisons, although he acknowledged that the broader law-and-order situation carried security risks.

At Sherpur, law-enforcement and intelligence agencies are working together to track the remaining fugitives and recover the missing ammunition, said Jail Superintendent Shah Rafiqul Islam.

 “Progress in apprehending the fugitives and recovering the ammunition is expected gradually,” he said. The surviving digital intelligence database, he added, has proved particularly useful after the destruction of the prison’s physical records.

 Sherpur Additional Superintendent of Police Md Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan said surveillance had been intensified, with the arrest of fugitives and recovery of weapons and ammunition among the authorities’ top priorities. 

Yet nearly two years after the prison gates were forced open, hundreds of inmates remain beyond them. For the authorities, the challenge is no longer simply repairing damaged prisons. It is finding the people who walked out of them-and accounting for the weapons and ammunition that disappeared with them.