Muggings rampant, but few are reported or brought to justice

• Three women died in similar muggings incidents in six months

• In most cases, police filed ‘lost property’ general diaries (GDs)

• Nine of the 22 high-profile cases occurred in areas under Tejgaon division

• At least eight incidents targeted people carrying cash

On the morning of 29 August, teacher Ranjila Parveen came to Dhaka from Bogura for eye treatment. She fell from a rickshaw when a mugger yanked at her bag and died. Five months earlier, Mukta Akter in Uttara and Soheli Islam in front of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital had also been killed in similar mugging incidents.

In the past six months, these three women have died after their bags were snatched from moving rickshaws or auto-rickshaws in Dhaka. In all three cases, the victims were travelling in moving vehicles when muggers grabbed their bags from the side or behind and pulled them away.

These three deaths are not isolated incidents. Such attacks are taking place one after another on different roads, at intersections and in busy parts of the capital. Although cases involving deaths or serious injuries come to public attention, most muggings remain unreported. Police register cases of robbery and dacoity in mugging incidents. From February to July, 149 robbery cases and just 18 dacoity cases were recorded in the capital.

But these figures do not reveal how many muggings actually occur. A large number of victims do not go to the police at all. And even when they do, police sometimes refuse to take a case and instead record a general diary (GD).

Prothom Alo analysed at least 22 serious or widely reported mugging incidents between 1 March and 30 August. The incidents involved people being hacked, stabbed, shot, thrown from moving trains and robbed of money and mobile phones at gunpoint.

Information was available on 26 direct victims in the 22 incidents. Twenty were men and six were women. Although women accounted for a smaller share of the victims, the consequences for them were particularly severe. Of the four deaths recorded among the 26 victims, three were women.

In at least seven incidents, the victims were travelling in rickshaws, auto-rickshaws or other vehicles. In two cases, the victims were on moving trains. Two women were attacked immediately after getting off rickshaws at their homes or destinations. In other words, muggings are particularly likely to occur while people are travelling from one place to another.

Soheli Islam was an employee of a pharmaceutical company. After spending the Eid holiday in Dinajpur, she was returning to Dhaka with her daughter. On the morning of 6 June, she got off a bus and was travelling home by rickshaw when muggers on a motorcycle grabbed her bag in front of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital. She fell onto the road and suffered a serious head injury. She died in hospital five days later.

Even when news of Soheli’s death was published, her family had not filed any complaint. The officers-in-charge of Mohammadpur and Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police stations told journalists at the time that they were unaware of any such mugging. A case was filed later, on 13 June, and police arrested one person.

This means that even a serious incident resulting in death was absent from the police crime records for several days before a case was filed.

A similar direct allegation has emerged from Mohammadpur. On the afternoon of 11 May, several people stopped a college student’s rickshaw in the Chan Mia Housing area and surrounded him. Showing sharp weapons, they took his mobile phone, money, wallet and other belongings.

The entire incident was captured on CCTV. The victim’s father later told the media that when they went to the police station to file a case, police instead asked them to file a GD for a lost mobile phone.

In addition, Prothom Alo spoke to seven victims of muggings occurring over the past six months. None of them filed a case. Four did not go to the police at all. The other three went to police stations after being mugged, but police recorded GDs instead.

Recently, a victim named Noman Siddiq said he was seriously injured in a mugging in the Mouchak area on the night of 16 August. The muggers took his mobile phone. When he went to Ramna police station and wanted to file a case, police recorded a GD for a lost phone.

It stated, “The phone was lost. Despite searching extensively, it could not be found.” The actual incident, however, was entirely different.

People familiar with the matter say this is a major weakness in the official statistics on muggings. If a mobile phone is snatched at knifepoint but the police record describes it as a “lost mobile phone”, the incident disappears from the mugging statistics. As a result, the actual scale of the crime cannot be understood.

In the past, muggings in the capital were more commonly associated with early mornings, deserted roads, nighttime and lone pedestrians. But incidents over the past six months have challenged that perception. Although muggings remain more common in the morning and at night, they are now occurring throughout much of the day.

Ranjila Parveen was attacked at around 6:30 am. Mukta Akter was attacked after 9:00 am. The college student in Chan Mia Housing, Mohammadpur, was mugged after his rickshaw was stopped at 5:37 pm. In Motijheel, there have also been allegations of daytime attacks involving weapons in areas where banks and financial transactions are concentrated.

Of the 22 incidents analysed by Prothom Alo, seven—or about 32 per cent—occurred between early morning and 9:00 am. Another eight, or about 36 per cent, occurred between 6:00 pm and midnight.

Together, these two periods accounted for 15 incidents, or about 68 per cent of the total. The remaining seven incidents, or 32 per cent, occurred between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm.

In the morning incidents, rickshaw and auto-rickshaw passengers, as well as people carrying cash for business purposes, appeared to be common targets. In the evening and at night, incidents more often involved blocking a victim’s path, displaying knives or machetes, or assaulting people before taking their money and phones.

There is also a particular risk in the early morning. Passengers arriving in Dhaka by bus from outside the capital and getting off at Gabtoli, Shyamoli, Jatrabari or other areas are being targeted while travelling onward by rickshaw or auto-rickshaw.

Soheli Islam, for example, had returned from Dinajpur. Ranjila Parveen had come from Bogura. Two women who were confronted with machetes in front of their home in Mohammadpur had also returned from outside Dhaka after the Eid holiday. In other words, the journey from a bus terminal to home has emerged as a clear mugging risk.

An analysis of the 22 widely reported mugging incidents over the past six months reveals four common methods.

The most deadly involves grabbing and pulling the bags of passengers travelling in rickshaws or auto-rickshaws from motorcycles, pickup trucks, CNG-run auto-rickshaws or other vehicles. Mukta Akter, Soheli Islam and Ranjila Parveen all fell from their vehicles and died after being targeted in this way. Three other incidents followed a similar pattern.

Another method involves two to five people surrounding a pedestrian or rickshaw passenger, showing knives or machetes or attacking the victim before quickly taking money and a mobile phone. Recently, CCTV footage of two people being robbed of all their belongings in Mohammadpur in just 27 seconds spread on social media. The same tactic was employed there. In Jatrabari, two fish traders were also attacked and robbed in the same way within a week of each other.

A third pattern involves selecting victims in advance. In at least eight incidents, the victims were carrying cash belonging to businesses or institutions. A banker was robbed of Tk 153,000, a bKash agent of nearly Tk 300,000, a money-exchange businessman of USD 17,000, a petrol station of Tk 12.1 million and an accountant of Tk 201,000.

A dollar trader was shot in Motijheel. In two incidents in Uttara, victims were attacked while on their way to deposit money at a bank.

In the fourth method, muggers continue their demands even after stopping victims or taking them to secluded places and stealing their money and phones. They may demand additional money through mobile financial services or call family members to extort more.

In the Shyamoli-Adabar area, a University of Dhaka student was taken into an alley, where his money and phone were taken and his family was asked for Tk 50,000. Police later arrested nine members of such a gang.

In 17 of the 22 incidents—about 77 per cent—there was information that sharp weapons or firearms were used or displayed. The weapons included knives, machetes, blades, locally made sharp weapons and pistols.

The widely reported incidents therefore were not merely cases of bag-snatching. In most, muggers created fear by displaying weapons or took away belongings after hacking or stabbing victims.

Muggings involving groups were more common than those involving lone offenders. Most organised attacks involved two to four people, while some involved six or seven.

In the 9 August incident in which Tk 12.1 million was taken from a petrol station, six or seven people arrived on three motorcycles. In another case, one person initially stopped a rickshaw carrying a victim named Nadim before three others surrounded him. In Jatrabari, four people surrounded and hacked fish trader Emed Ali.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operations) Mohammad Osman Gani told Prothom Alo that muggers were choosing specific times and locations. In particular, they were trying to exploit relatively deserted places along routes taken by people travelling from bus stops to their destinations.

Taking this into account, 88 checkpoints are currently operating at key points across the capital. Each police station also has three to five regular patrol teams. Supervision teams are monitoring the activities of the checkpoints and patrols.

Despite these measures, isolated incidents continue to occur. Efforts are underway to identify and arrest those involved and bring them to justice.

Regarding allegations of negligence at checkpoints, Osman Gani said departmental action was being taken against police officers if evidence of negligence was found. On allegations that muggings were being recorded as GDs for “lost mobile phones”, he said any specific complaint or information would be investigated and action taken.

Police and other law enforcement agencies have prepared several lists identifying areas prone to muggings and locations where such crimes occur frequently.

At different times, more than 300 locations across the capital have been identified as mugging hotspots. More than 50 of these have been described as areas where muggings are particularly frequent.

However, Prothom Alo found that nine of the 22 incidents it analysed occurred within Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Tejgaon division, covering Mohammadpur, Adabar, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar and Tejgaon.

Five occurred in the Jatrabari-Demra-Wari area, four in Motijheel-Shahjahanpur, three in Uttara-Turag-Airport and one near Banani Railway Gate.

Although police have identified mugging hotspots, the fear of being robbed continues to follow people through the city. Residents say police checkpoints have become far less visible than before. Even where checkpoints remain, police are often absent.

At times, officers on duty leave the roadside checkpoints and remain occupied with their mobile phones. This allows criminals to escape more easily and increases public anxiety, they alleged.

Mahfuza Akter has worked at a private company in Gulshan for nine years. She travels from her home in Kafrul to the office five days a week. Sometimes she does not leave work until 9:00 or 9:30 pm. She told Prothom Alo that she has long travelled by rickshaw between home and work. But as muggings have increased, she now feels afraid to travel once evening falls.