Crime on rise ahead of Eid

Police guard almost all shopping arcades and malls in the port city to ensure security of Eid shoppers and the shop owners. PHOTO: STAR

Crimes, including extortion and robbery, are on the rise in the port city ahead of the Eid.

And right from the beginning of Ramadan, the criminals come out of their hideouts.

Not a single day has passed from the first Ramadan without any incident of extortion, robbery and mugging in Chittagong city and elsewhere in the district. Mobile phone shop owners are the main targets of the criminals.

The most gruesome of all criminal activities was the murder of housewife Noor Nahar alias Milon on the night of November 3 at Al Falah Lane in the city's Nasirabad area. Noor Nahar, wife of an American expatriate, was killed by the criminals as she refused to pay toll. Police is looking for the prime accused Salahuddin alias Chhagol Babu.

Robbers on the night of November 5, stormed the Integra Communications Limited, a mobile dealer at Agrabad Commercial Area, by breaking open the door and looted Tk 1.5 lakh in cash, mobile sets and pre-paid cards worth over Tk 12 lakh. Doublemooring police is yet to recover the looted goods or trace the criminals.

Criminals even didn't spare a disabled beggar. All the money of 55-year old Abdur Rashid was stolen when he was offering Juma prayers at Nasirabad Housing Society mosque on November 5 keeping his earnings of the day beside a wall.

A gang of miscreants stormed into Mozammel Electronics, a cell phone shop, at Agrabad Sheikh Mujib Road at 8.15pm on November 4. The masked criminals confined the shop owner Motahar Hossain and other staffs at gunpoint and looted 52 CityCell sets, 16 GSM sets and Tk 36,000 in cash. They also assaulted Motahar and another employee before leaving the shop with the booty.

Meanwhile, a gang of four muggers, however, couldn't escape following the prompt act of an intelligent police officer and timely assistance of passers-by in front of Biman Office at Sholoshar Gate No-2 area the same day in the morning. The gang tried to snatch Tk 1.5 lakh from Mohammad Shahjahan, manager of a business firm, when he was returning to his shop in a rickshaw after withdrawing the money from Islami Bank Bangladesh.

Assistant Commissioner of Doublemooring Zone Mohammad Ilias caught red handed two muggers as the gang was scuffling with Motahar to take him into an auto-rickshaw after a brief chase. Local people caught two othe muggers from the auto-rickshaw along with a loaded revolver.

The criminals looted Tk 2.5 lakh in cash, four mobile sets worth Tk 30,000 and a walkie-talkie from the counter of Saudia Paribahan at around 5.00am on November 1. They confined the staffs to the toilet during the robbery.

Another gang looted a steel gate and other construction materials from the under-construction building of Professor Mohiuddin, a teacher of mathematics of Chittagong University, at city's Hill-View Residential Area the same morning. The gang committed the crime as the CU teacher refused to meet their demand for extortion. Police, however, arrested the main culprit in the incident.

The miscreants attacked Priyatosh Chowdhury, a jeweller, and take away his motorbike, gold chain and mobile set at Nandipara in Raozan the same night. The incident occurred when the businessman was returning home from his shop at Sitakunda upazila.

A gang of muggers dragged one Mohammad Shahid out of Hathazari Bus Station and snatched Tk 1.5 lakh and a mobile set from him when he was taking Iftar on October 3. He was going to his village home at Dharmapur in Fatikchhari from Chittagong city.

"We have taken special measures to curb crime during the Ramadan, deployed additional forces in different shopping malls and markets and arranged patrol at various points in the city to frustrate the criminals," Gazi Jasim Uddin, Senior Assistant Commissioner (Detective Branch) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, told this correspondent.