Muggers lurk on city streets

Wearing decent clothes and looking like a gentleman, one of them would greet you on the street or at a terminal.

"Assalamu Alaikum, how are you, brother?"

The chances are, you would stop for a moment and wonder if you knew him from somewhere. Once you stop, several men would appear at the scene, surround you, and mug you at knifepoint.

"Do not scream. Give us everything you have," they would tell you.

Several groups of muggers in the capital employ many other tricks to mug people.

Detectives in a special drive arrested 42 suspected muggers in different areas  in the last few days, Abdul Baten, additional commissioner of Detective Branch of police, told a press conference at the Media Centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police yesterday.

"Most of the arrestees had been accused of mugging in cases filed earlier," he said.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged woman died in Mugda area yesterday morning after she fell off a rickshaw because muggers in a moving car grabbed and snatched away her purse, causing her to fall from the moving three-wheeler.

Baten said bag snatching had become frequent in the city and the victims were mostly women.

Another trick employed by the muggers is, one of them would bump into a pedestrian and blame them of breaking their phone. The muggers would then corner the victim and rob him, the official added.

The 42 arrestees were caught red-handed or found in possession of mugged items, the additional commissioner added.

Officers recovered 74 mobile phones, a tab, a laptop and sharp weapons from the arrestees.

AREAS MOSTLY TARGETED

The muggers mostly target people near midnight and early morning. Most of the victims are pedestrians or people on rickshaws, officials said.

The places where most of the incidents occur are Satrasta, Nabisco, Mohakhali Bus Terminal, Mohakhali level crossing, Banani, Gulshan-1, Gulshan Link Road, Rampura Bridge, Dhanmondi, Bangshal, Chawkbazar, Kalabagan, Gulistan, Jatrabari, Sayedabad, and New Market, and Sadarghat Launch Terminal.

People are also targeted on poorly lit streets and quiet alleys, Baten said.

WHAT HAPPENS TO MUGGED PHONES

"The muggers often do not sell the phones in one piece. They teardown the phone and sell its parts separately to repair shops and discard the motherboard which contains an IMEI number," the official said.

Mugged phones are also sold in different shopping malls, especially in mobile servicing shops, he said.

Many of the shops are selling unauthorised phones, and police will launch a crackdown on them soon.

Citing another recent example, Baten said detectives investigating a case tracked down a stolen phone in Narayanganj. But it turned out that the man who was using the phone bought it from an e-commerce website.

VICTIMS DO NOT REPORT

According to DMP, around 900 mugging cases were filed at different police stations in the capital in the last five years. Officials said many more instances of mugging had not been reported during the period.

"It is not possible for police to stop such crimes if no case is filed. If your local police station does not want to record cases, inform us. We will take action," Baten said.