Doping gangs on the prowl

Think twice before buying any medicine or food items from a hawker on a bus, as the hawker may well be a member of a gang, known as oggan party, which drugs passengers and robs them.
Shariful Islam, a businessman, was doped by such a gang last month and he lay unconscious for nearly two and a half days after eating some sweets on a bus. He was robbed of Tk 1 lakh he had withdrawn from a bank.
The Detective Branch of police, which investigated the case he had filed with Uttara East Police Station, arrested 10 members of a gang at different parts of the capital on Friday night.
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, yesterday told a press briefing about the arrests, noting that such gangs usually become more active before festivals, especially Eid-ul-Fitr.
Following a tip-off, a team led by Deputy Commissioner Moshiur Rahman of DB (West) arrested seven of them on a bus of Ilish Paribahan         at Dholaipar in Bangshal with drug-tainted herbal medicine, biscuits, dates and pudding and seven mobile phones around 8:30pm.
The arrestees are gang leader Farid Hossain Robin, 25, Abdul Hamid, 23, Md Rabbi, 23, Abdul Haque, 69, Md Anis Khan, 30, Saidul Mollah, 25, and Babu Kazi, 30.
Farid, owner of a private firm, used to sell drugged eggs at Sadarghat in 2005 and formed such a gang that worked in and around the capital, said Monirul,     adding that Tk 50,000 and a revolver were recovered from his Mirpur residence.
Information from the gang members led to the arrests of Arif Hossain, Nasir Uddin and Mizanur Rahman, who sold sedatives without prescriptions. They worked at Fakirapul's Gausia Pharmacy and Dholaipar's Suma   Medicine Centre, from where 5500 tablets were seized.
Some of the gang members, posing as normal passengers, used to buy an unadulterated food item from a fellow member pretending to be a hawker, eat it and admire its taste in order to trick passengers into buying the product. They did this mostly during the iftar.
Monirul added that this gang had also passed themselves off as members of the Rab, DB and police and robbed people.
He said similar gangs, their ringleaders being Don, Haji Liton and Lincoln, operate mostly on the routes between Dhaka and adjoining areas, including Gazipur, Manikganj, Tongi and Mawa.
Another source in the police said more than 15 such gangs are active in the capital and its outskirts.
“On average six to seven doped passengers are brought here every day,” said a source at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Monirul also told the press briefing about a separate incident in which police arrested a man named Khalilur Rahman in the capital's Paltan for selling firearms.
A Dhaka court placed all the 11 arrestees on remand for three days.