Crime on rise in city

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is going to launch a special drive from Saturday night in order to arrest growing crime in the capital.
Earlier, the authorities of DMP at a meeting decided to launch the drive reviewing the prevailing law and order situation.
The meeting held at DMP headquarters recently was presided over by DMP Commissioner Benzir Ahmed. High officials of the city’s police department were also present.
Admitting the matter, Abdul Jalil Mandal, Additional Police Commissioner of DMP told The New Nation on Saturday that the special combined drive will start from tonight, aiming at recovering illegal arms, arrest of listed criminals, fugitives and drug traders.
The main objective of the drive is to improve law and order situation in the city, he added.
 “The DMP headquarters have already sent necessary instructions to each DMP zone and police stations asking the concerned officers to conduct the special drive,”
 Jalil Mandal said.
He further said, the drive will be carried out based on a list of active criminals prepared by the intelligent wings of the DMP. The list comprises hundreds of absconding criminals, muggers, snatchers, killers, fugitives, carjackers and drug peddlers.  
Members of Detective Branch (DB) of Police, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and Special Branch (SB) of Police and police personnel of local police stations will jointly conduct the drive, he said. “The DMP conducts routine drive time to time, but this particular type of drive has been chalked out to arrest recent trend to crimes,” he added.
Terming the recent crimes in the capital as ‘isolated events,’ he said, “It is nothing new. If you analyse the criminal activities in the city, you will find rise and fall in their trends”.  
The DMP high official, however, claimed that the law and order situation in the city remained under control despite these incidents and the city’s police department has engaged all-out efforts to maintain law and order in the capital.
 “The city police are always in the field and they are working relentlessly to ensure safety and security of the city residents,” he added. Responding to a question, the acting DMP Commissioner said, the drive is against all categories of crimes and it will continue until notable success is achieved.
Medehi Hasan, Assistant Commissioner (AC) of DMP’s Wari Zone, said, “We have already got the DMP’s instruction regarding carrying out the special drive. The OC’s under my jurisdiction have been asked to carryout the directive of DMP headquarters properly. “We will intensify our watch on criminals, fugitives, listed terrorists and arms and drug dealers during the drive. We hope this will not only help arrest the listed criminals, recover illegal arms and narcotics but also prevent the crimes,” he said. MA Jalil, OC of Badda, told this correspondent that he had received the order of conducting the special drive from the DMP high-ups on Friday.
 “The forces of my police station has already started conducting the drive to follow the directive of DMP headquarters,” he said. As per the statistics prepared by DMP, a total of 25 dacoity and robbery, 19 murder, 17 kidnapping and 77 cases of vehicle theft were reported in the different police stations in the capital in January this year. A total of 24 dacoity and robbery, 16 murder, 18 kidnapping and 68 vehicle theft cases were reported in city’s police stations in February.
In March, a total of 33 dacoity and robbery, 19 murder, 15 kidnapping and 72 vehicle theft were reported in the city’s police stations while a total of 23 dacoity and robbery, 24 murder, 12 kidnapping and 66 vehicle theft were reported in April.
A total number of 23 dacoity and robbery, 21 murder, 17 kidnapping and 53 vehicle theft cases were reported in May. In June, the number of dacoity and robbery cases were 35, murder 26, kidnapping 17 and vehicle theft 69 while a total of 27 dacoity and robbery, 25 murder, 13 kidnapping and 77 vehicle theft cases were reported in July.
Besides, so many cases of snatching, mugging and robbery took place in the city, which were not recorded in the police stations, sources said. Meanwhile, the police on Saturday were seen on duty wearing a new jacket supplied by the DMP authorities. An on-duty police officer at Tikatuli in the city told this correspondent that they are wearing the new jacket to ensure visibility of the law enforcers in roads. “The criminals might not be influenced to commit a crime following visibility of police,” he added.