Incidence of crimes such as murder and mugging has increased in the Sylhet city ahead the city corporation polls to be held on June 15.
The city dwellers have blamed indifference of the law-enforcement
agencies for the sudden rise in crimes.Three incidents of murder took place in the city within less than 30 hours between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday night, creating panic among the city dwellers.
But, the police so far could not even find any clue to the murders or arrest the criminals involved with the killing.
Unidentified miscreants hacked a businessperson Ringku Barua, 43, to death in front of the Dhaka Bank branch at Shahjalal Upa-Shahar in the city at around 9:00pm on Thursday when he was returning his Upa-Shahar residence.
Local sources said Ringku, owner of a printing shop in the city’s Surma Market, might have been killed in connection with his business rivalry with Abu Bakkar, owner of another printing shop in the same market.
Police detained Abu Salik, younger brother of Abu Bakkar immediately after the incident on charge of his suspected involvement with the murder, but the lawmen could not arrest the actual killer of Ringku still Monday, 4 days after the incident, sources in the Shah Paran Police said.
Only a day before Ringku’s killing, MC College third year economics honours student Ahmed Imtiaz Parvej, 24, was also murdered in the city.
Local people said five miscreants, in two motorcycles, stopped the auto-rickshaw carrying Parvei at Pathantula in the city at around 4:00pm on Wednesday and hacked him with sharp weapons.
The auto-rickshaw driver, with the help of local people, took Parvej to Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital, but he died there within half-an hour after his admission, the on-duty doctors said.
At the same time, the Biman Bandar police recovered the body of an employee, Al Amin, 26, from a hardware shop at Mazumdari in the city.
The police stated the incident as mysterious as the body was not found hanging when it was recovered when the shop owner, Abdul Manaf, claimed that Al Amin committed suicide hanging himself from a rack of the shop, sources in the police said.
Al Amin’s father Nur Ahmad alleged that the shop owner killed his son after Al Amin insisted that he should get back his money that he kept with his employer for several years.
But, the police could not arrest the suspected killers of college student Parvej and shop employee Al Amin so far. They even could not ascertain reasons behind the two killings.
Sunday afternoon, a group of unidentified miscreants looted Tk 13 lakh after stabbing two officials of Transcom Limited in the city’s Dargah Gate. They were carrying the money in an auto-rickshaw from the company’s Naya Sarak office to deposit it with a bank at Dargah Gate.
Earlier the same day, four armed miscreants stopped a rickshaw of Rupak Ranjan Nath, a construction firm owner, at Zindabazar in the city and looted Tk 3 lakh at gunpoint.
Rupak was returning to his Dargah Mahalla residence after drawing the money from a bank at Laldighir Par in the city.
Armed miscreants looted Tk 2 lakh of a stone trader on Wednesday and Tk 2.5 lakh of a mobile phone recharge shop owner from in front of the Sylhet Cadet College Tuesday.
But, none could be arrested in these connections still Monday, sources in the police said.
Shamim Ahmed Swapan, 26, a resident of Goainghat, was stabbed by miscreants on the Sylhet judge court premises at the noon of May 20 when he came to submit his statement as a witness in a case filed by the environment department.
A group of attackers hacked Ohi Alam Reza, a senior reporter of a regional daily Sabuj Sylhet, on May 19 at Sobhanighat in the city.
Reza was admitted at the SOMCH in a critical condition and he was undergoing treatment there still Monday.
Family members of Swapan and Reza filed separate cases with the Kotwali police, accusing specific persons for launching the attacks. But the police did not arrest any of the accused in the cases.
Being contacted, Sylhet Metropolitan Police additional commissioner, Rokan Uddin, however, told New Age that they had strengthened their activities to keep law and order at a tolerable level in the city.
‘Special drives are also being conducted in the city to nab the criminals,’ the police officer said, blaming decline in social values for the increasing number of crimes.
-With New Age input
