Muggers go reckless

Shoot two in city to rob them; violent snatchings spiral despite special drive
Armed muggers yesterday in broad daylight shot two persons and made off with around Tk 4 lakh in separate incidents in the capital’s Shyamoli and South Keraniganj areas.
Police said three muggers on a motorbike shot Acme Laboratories’ Accounts Officer Mostak Ahmed, 35, and snatched Tk 3.78 lakh from him when he stepped out of a CNG run auto rickshaw in front of Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd on Ring Road around 2:45pm.
Mostak said “I withdrew the amount from Satmasjid Road Branch of National Bank, and was carrying the money to deposit in Dutch-Bangla Bank there.”
The other victim Golam Ferdaus, 32, a junior officer of Sakti Foundation at Kadamtali in South Keraniganj said, “I and my colleague Saiful Islam were collecting money from clients of the foundation in the area around 1:30pm, when five to six muggers encircled us, shot me, and snatched around 10 thousand taka from me.”
Incidents of mugging have been on the rise in the city, in which favourite targets seem to be clients of banks coming out of the financial institutions, sales representative of different cellphone companies, moneychangers, travel agents, and traders carrying money.
Despite an ongoing special drive of police in the city since May 13, muggers using small firearms are continuing to rob people, putting the residents in a state of constant panic.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) sources said over 81 incidents of mugging took place in the capital in June, while the figure for the first eight days of July is not yet available.
City residents however said the figure would be two to three folds more, as many victims do not report to police fearing legal complexities.
Different law enforcement sources said on an average around 70 to 100 incidents of snatching take place in the capital per day at over 435 crime prone spots, but most of the victims do not report to the police.
City residents said muggers carry firearms and use motor vehicles including motorbikes to commit the crimes, despite deployment of law enforcers and constant police patrol at different intersections across the city.
Against such a backdrop, the police administration sat for a meeting at the police headquarters on Monday to figure out effective strategies for fighting crimes in the capital.
In the meeting, the DMP authorities decided to divide jurisdictions of police stations under their sub-inspectors (SIs), holding them liable for any crime occurring within the areas of the jurisdictions.
DMP sources said from now on SIs will gather information about criminals and crimes, and will conduct drives to catch them as each SI will be provided with two to three constables for conducting raids.
DMP Commissioner AKM Shahidul Haque said “An SI will contain crime in his or her assigned area. The SI will also settle long-standing problems existing in the area by holding arbitrations among feuding groups or individuals. Besides, DMP is going to strengthen police patrolling, forming at least three more motorbike patrol teams in each police station. In each patrol team there will be four police personnel with two motor bikes.”

Courtesy of The Daily Star