16 members of teen gang sent to correction centre
A mobile court yesterday sentenced 17 members of a gang to one-year imprisonment for taking drugs, mugging, and wielding sharp weapons on the street.
Of them, 16 were sent to Juvenile Correction Centre in Gazipur as they are aged between 14-17, while a 25-year-old gang member was sent to jail, said Rab executive magistrate Sarower Alam, who led the 24-hour drive in Rayerbazar area, starting at around 11am on Saturday.
Under the name of “Star Bond Group” they were involved in taking drugs, mugging, and clashing with rival groups. All of them are school dropouts, he said.
Sarower said there has been a long-standing conflict between Star Bond and another local group -- ‘Molla Rabbi Group’. Last year, a teenager belonging to Star Bond was killed by the rival group.
Marking the death anniversary, Star Bond group arranged a doa mahfil on Friday and uploaded a photo of the programme on Facebook.
As a member of Molla Rabbi Group commented a smiling emoji in the post, the groups’ old rivalry surfaced again, Sarower said. Star Bond gang members later in the day wielded machetes, axes and other sharp weapons, looking for the Molla Rabbi group member in Rayerbazar area.
As several Rab men, who were deployed in plainclothes for surveillance of Janmashtami programme on that day, intercepted them on their way, the gang members intended to attack the law enforcers. This prompted the law enforcers to carry out the raid next day, the magistrate said.
During the drive, Rab members recovered some sharp weapons including machetes and axes from their possession.
In recent years, teenagers under different names formed gangs in the city’s Abdullahpur, Tongi, Uttara, Uttarkhan, Dakkhin Khan, Mohammadpur, Hazaribagh, Kamrangirchar areas and different districts.
They got involved in drug peddling, mugging, and even murder, to establish supremacy over rival groups, law enforcers said.
Law enforcers said they strengthened surveillance with constant drives against the gangs after one such gang in Barguna called ‘Bond 007’ hacked a youth to death in broad daylight on June 26.
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