More than 100 teens picked up

Police yesterday picked up over 100 teenagers from the capital’s Hatirjheel area in a drive against the growing “teen-gang culture”.

“Receiving several complaints from the guardians about eve-teasing, Hatirjheel police picked them up from different spots,” said Hafiz Al Faruq, additional deputy commissioner (Tejgaon Industrial Zone) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, adding that the action was taken as part of their regular drive against the teen-gang culture.

Police were verifying their offences, he said.

“If we find anyone innocent, we will hand him or her over to guardians after receiving an undertaking,” the police official added.

Hatirjheel is a lakefront in Dhaka and a popular spot for hangout among the teenagers and the youths. 

On Wednesday, Mohsin Ali, 17, a tenth-grader of Child Heaven International School, was hacked to death in Mohammadpur area over internal conflict among the teen gangs in the area.

Dhaka’s teen gang culture first hit the headlines after a ninth grader Adnan Kabir was beaten to death in Uttara in 2017. The law enforcers carried out a crackdown on such groups who engaged in different criminal activities across Dhaka city.

According to law enforcement agencies, over 50 of such gangs are active in different parts of the city, including Dhanmondi, Mohammadpur, Mirpur and Uttara. 

They frequently get engaged in violent clashes with hockey sticks, cricket stumps and sharp knives either to flex their muscles, establish supremacy or “draw respect” from the juniors.

These gang members often ride motorbikes recklessly with loud honks and paint graffiti in different walls of their areas, said police and locals.

Most of them are aged between 14 to 18 and they are involved in various petty crimes like ever-teasing, mugging and drug abuse.

In this year alone, the Rab arrested around 190 teenagers and youths of such gangs from different areas in the capital.