Robbers reign supreme at night on Ashulia road

If you plan to take a trip through Ashulia road at night, think at least twice. Because you may be risking your life at the hands of robbers who waylay cars just as Nadim Uddin Nadim, a resident of Mohammadpur in the city, experienced on the Eid night. There are many more to tell similar stories.
Nadim and two other friends were taking the Ashulia road on the way home from Uttara around 8:30pm.
"Suddenly we heard a bang as an object hit our speeding private car in Mirpur Beribadh area,” Nadim told The Daily Star.
They stopped the car and got down to inspect what went wrong. And in a flash, a gang of 10 to 12 robbers who were hiding behind the roadside bushes jumped on them.
“The criminals were all naked except for a loin cloth and carrying sharp weapons,” Nadim says. “They were making blood curdling cries and they rushed towards us and started chopping us before we could realise what was happening," he adds.
“One of us luckily got free and ran away. He then waved at the passing cars. But no one stopped,” Nadim went on.
Luckily a microbus stopped and the passengers agreed to help them. As they came to the spot of robbery, the bandits melted into the dark again. He added that the muggers tried to get into the car perhaps to snatch it.
Nadim said no police patrol team was available near the spot to help them.
Nadim's story is not an exceptional one. Such incidents are happening on Dhaka-Ashulia road almost every day.
Every day soon after nightfall several gangs of muggers become active at over 10 points on the road making commuter movement in small vehicles like private car and microbus risky.
Many commuters allege the muggers snatch their belongings and sometimes even their vehicles after injuring or killing passengers of such small vehicles though there are police patrols on the road.
They said the robbers commit crimes after intercepting private cars or microbuses at Mohammadpur, Gabtali, Nababerbagh, Diabari, Pallabi, Turag, Uttara, Darussalam and Shah Ali Bheribadh areas, Madhumati Model town to Rajfulbaria under Savar, stretching around a 7km area, and Navana Housing near Ashulia Police Station, over around a 5km area on Dhaka-Ashulia road.
OC Monwar Hossain of Ashulia Police Station told The Daily Star that such gangs, active on the Beribadh, throw stones or brick bats at speeding cars or microbuses at night and when the vehicles stop to see what has happened, they swoop on the passengers and snatch their belongings or the very vehicles.
However, the OC claimed that they have already checked such incidents on the road.
Deputy Commissioner Chowdhury Lutful Kabir of Mirpur zone under Dhaka Metropolitan Police told The Daily Star that no incident of robbery or mugging took place in Beribadh area since his joining one and a half month ago as he directed the police stations concerned to conduct police patrols on the road round the clock.
But on September 16, muggers snatched a taxicab after killing its driver on Ashulia Bheribadh. Locals found driver Shamim, 35, lying on the Beribadh in front of Navana Housing with stab injuries. He was rushed to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) around 12:30am where he died at 1:30am.
While struggling for his life at DMCH Shamim told the reporters that a gang of four muggers got into his taxicab at Fantasy Kingdom in Ashulia and they stabbed him indiscriminately and pulled him out of the car on the Beribadh and fled the scene with the taxicab.
The deputy commissioner said he directed the OCs of Darussalam, Pallabi and Shah Ali police stations to increase police patrols on the Beribadh round the clock to control such crimes.
Police and locals said the gangs commit crimes freely, as most of the areas on both sides of the Beribadh have no habitation.