Chattogram: A City of Burglary

"At noon, there was shouting from the building next door. A thief stretched his hand in through the window of a 2-storeyed apartment, grabbed two mobile phones, and walked away along the adjacent drainage canal," this is how Sitara Shamim, owner of a five-storey building told about the theft to media.   

By the time people gathered and approached the canal, the thief had gone vanished. "After evening, we saw that the water pump was missing from the ground floor of our building. We are exasperated by the thieves. We can't even sleep at night out of fear," Sitara added.

Sitara lives on Ramkrishna Mission Lane in Askar Dighir Par of (Chattogram) Chittagong city. She said that within the last week, three apartments in three buildings in their neighbourhood—including that of footballer Mahbub—have experienced larcency. Gangs of thieves took electrical wires, water taps and pumps, gold ornaments, and mobile phones. There have even been three attempted break-ins at the same house between noon and night.

For the past two months, burglary have been going on across Chittagong city like a "festive fervour." However, most of these theft cases are not recorded with the police, because the victims are reluctant to report. As Sitara Shamim put it, "There's no point in telling the police. They come, they investigate, and then there's no further development."

Failing to get any redress, city dwellers are increasingly taking the law into their own hands. On June 21, a young man named Zainal was beaten to death on suspicion of being a thief at Railway Public High School in the city's Polo Ground area. On June 24, residents of Askar Dighir Par caught a young man red-handed while stealing a mobile phone, gave him a mob beating, and handed him over to the police.

Mosques and temples are not spared from thieves either. On June 19, at noon, Tk 2,20,000 was stolen from the office room of a Jame Mosque in the city's Sadarghat area. Police, however, arrested two people with Tk 1,86,000 within a day.

This Thursday morning, money and gold ornaments were stolen from a Kali temple in the city's Gosaildanga area. Last week, electrical wires were also stolen from the Ramkrishna Mission temple in Askar Dighir Par.

Earlier, on May 17, early in the morning, two mobile phones were stolen from the apartment of Raju Chowdhury on the fourth floor of Milon Dhar's building on Rajapur Lane in the city. He filed a General Diary (GD) at Kotwali Police Station but received no remedy. Later, he himself identified the culprit from CCTV footage. Along with locals, he went to the burned colony in Baklia, caught the thief, and recovered the two phones. He then withdrew the GD, he said.

On May 27, a theft occurred on the second floor of Chowdhury Villa, located right opposite the gate of the CMP South Zone Deputy Commissioner's office on Biplobi Bino Behari Lane, Momin Road. Taking advantage of the absence of residents, the thief entered by opening the iron grille and glass window and took various items. On June 22, from the apartment of Gautam Chowdhury on the fourth floor of Nupur Contractor Building in Rahmatganj, two mobile phones and a laptop were taken out through the window. However, the laptop was left on the window ledge. Not a single one of these theft incidents was reported to the police.
Although such incidents are not well-recorded, officials at various levels of the city police are concerned about the rise in thefts and robberies. However, the CMP's Additional Commissioner (Crime) Muhammad Faisal Ahmed said that without complaints, these crimes cannot be controlled. He stated, "If someone does not come to the police station, it is not possible for us to provide them with redress. Snatchers, thieves, drug users, and drug sellers are being caught in large numbers regularly. They go to jail. Then they come out on bail again."

Another CMP official said that thefts and robberies are higher in 4–5 police station areas of the city. He mentioned that news of thefts is coming more frequently from Kotwali, Baklia, Sadarghat, Chawkbazar, Khulshi, Double Mooring, and EPZ areas. Such crimes are more common in places where there are slums, hills, and railway stations.

According to CMP records, in the last five months, there have been 211 incidents of theft, burglary, and robbery in the city. In January, 53 cases were filed; in February, 31; in March, 40; in April, 52; and in May, 35 cases were registered at various police stations. During the same period last year (five months), 215 cases were filed.

Several officials from the detective unit said that most of those involved in thefts are drug users and floating people. Earlier, the CMP had area-wise lists of such offenders. When thefts and snatchings increased, police used to conduct special operations at crime-prone spots, including railway stations, slums, and pavements. Regular operations were always there.

But over the last two years, the police's round-the-clock activities to prevent petty theft, burglary, robbery, and snatching have declined. The CMP also does not have any updated list of offenders. At present, the CMP lacks the organizational structure of capable, skilled, and efficient officers to combat crime in the multi-dimensional crime-prone Chittagong city.

Routine, stereotyped work is not providing the desired security to city dwellers. Many CMP officials admitted this in conversations but declined to be named.

Additional Police Commissioner Muhammad Faisal Ahmed said, "We have taken the initiative to update the area-wise lists of offenders. After the update, special operations will be intensified across the entire city."