A significant portion of the firearms and ammunition looted from police establishments during the recent uprising has yet to be recovered, raising concerns about potential criminal activity and security threats, reports Daily Sun.
After the fall of the Awami League government in the face of the mass upsurge spearheaded by students, law enforcement agencies were busy recovering their looted firearms and ammunition and arresting the accused in cases filed over the murders and attacks during the uprising.
Although the law enforcers have made a great success to this effect, huge arms and ammunition still remained unrecovered.
According to the Police Headquarters (PHQ), some 1,424 firearms and 257,690 pieces of ammunition could not be recovered, which is 25% and 40% of the total looted.
Crime analyst Dr Md Tawohidul Haque, also an associate professor at the Institute of Social Welfare and Research at Dhaka University, told the Daily Sun that the failure to recover the looted arms and ammunition poses a serious threat to the society.
He explains that the looters are not general people; rather they are criminals and they will use those for carrying out criminal acts.
"I think the law enforcers should change the method of recovery. They should first take an idea about the patterns of the looters and then try to recover those," he said.
Some 5,696 firearms and 644,225 pieces of ammunition were looted from different police stations, outposts and offices during the mass uprising.
The firearms include 1,100 Chinese Rifles, 10 Rifles-T 08 (BD), 247 SMGs-T 56 (China), 32 LMGs-T 56 (China), 529 pistols-T 54 (China), 1,083 pistols (9*19 MM), 33 SMGs/SMTs, 2,058 shotguns, 586 gas guns, 15 teargas launchers and three signal pistols.
A total of 6,04,857 bullets, 31,806 teargas cells, 1,455 teargas grenades, 4,692 sound grenades, 290 coloured smoked grenades, 55 seven/multiple bang stun grenades, 893 flash bang /6bang grenades and 177 handheld teargas sprays are among the looted ammunition.
However, 4,272 firearms and 386,535 pieces of ammunition have so far been recovered by law enforcers and armed forces.
During the joint drives, 297 firearms were recovered from 4 September to 9 October and 148 possessors were arrested, said the PHQ.
Sources said a portion of the looted firearms went to the hands of underworld criminals and drug traders.
Underworld criminal Boga Kajol through his cohorts looted a big number of firearms from police stations.
Some of the arms were reportedly given to underworld criminals Mamun, Shamim, Killer Abbas, and Shahdat’s cohorts, said the sources.
As per the PHQ, 450 police stations came under attack during the mass uprising.
One of those is Adabor Police Station which was burned and about 430 firearms, including 20 new pistols, were looted.
Officer-in-charge of the police station Mahfuz Imtiaz Bhuiyan told the Daily Sun that 40 of their looted arms could not be recovered yet.
When contacted, Spokesperson for the police force Enamul Haque Sagor told the Daily Sun that joint drives continue to recover the rest of the looted firearms and ammunition.
He expressed the hope that they will be able to recover those soon.
Meanwhile, about 1,695 cases were filed on charges of killings, attempted murder and other charges since the overthrow of the AL government.
The law enforcers arrested 3,195 people, including 74 big guns of the AL and its government till 9 October.
Sagor said the law enforcers are working to arrest all the accused.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
