Shariful Islam

Taking lessons from the past, law enforcement agencies are redoing their strategies to keep law and order under control in this election year. As part of their plan, police and different intelligence agencies will prepare a fresh list of wanted criminals and probable political troublemakers ahead of the election and launch drives to arrest them. Special drives will also be made to recover illegal firearms, said a number of top police officials.

In the first nine months of this year, more than 60 percent of the accused got acquitted in drug-related cases, and narcotics control officials blame the poor conviction rate mainly on the faulty charge sheets and a lack of witnesses. The scenarios were almost similar in the previous two years.

Mohammad Alauddin, a manpower businessman, was waiting for a friend at a tea stall at Mollartek in Dakkhin Khan around 4:30pm on November 10.

KM Shamim Akhter was forced into a microbus near his Paltan home on the morning of September 29, 2011 by five to six armed men claiming to be members of a law enforcement agency. His wife Jhorna Khanam and other family members left no stone unturned to find him out. But he still remains traceless.

The High Court yesterday asked Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to form a probe body to investigate why the intelligence unit of then BDR failed to detect the impending 2009 mutiny.

In recent years, the country's northwestern border in Chapainawabganj has emerged as a major route for smuggling in arms. It has of late become militants' most preferred point for collecting illegal firearms and explosives. This is the route through which terror outfit “Neo JMB” smuggled in the guns and bombs used in last year's Gulshan café attack. With such chilling information surfacing, Shariful Islam visits the zero line area of Indo-Bangla border in the district to investigate how the illicit trade goes on there so easily.

Two years have passed since the killing of publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan and the hacking of another publisher Ahmedur Rashid Tutul and two others, but investigators still cannot say for sure when they will be able to submit charge sheets in the cases.

Three brothers joined arms to conduct a gold smuggling business that spanned across Dhaka, Dubai, Masqat, Kuala Lumpur, Jeddah

Believe it or not, there are only six officials at the directorate of prisons, which oversees 68 prisons across the country containing around 70,000 inmates.

A Bangladeshi citizen who along with his family went to Malaysia last year has remained missing since July 19 after Malaysian immigration police deported him for his suspected links with militancy.

Young homeopath Moklesur Rahaman Johnny went out of his chamber to buy medicine for his father on August 4 night last year, but he never returned. He did not just disappear, according to his wife Jesmin Nahar as she had seen him in the lockup of the Satkhira Sadar Police Station the next morning when she had gone there to ask police to find her husband.

Militant group “Neo JMB” is still posing a security threat as its members are making efforts to carry out suicide attacks individually, said counterterrorism officials.

Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh militant Tariqul Islam Tareq was arrested in Chittagong in connection with a 2005 countrywide series bomb blast case.

The trade of illegal drug Yaba is booming in the capital under political patronisation. A section of policemen, who are supposed to clamp down on Yaba traders, are also working as the patrons, according to police findings.

The deadly explosive triacetone triperoxide or TATP, used by terrorists in Paris, Brussels and London attacks, has of late become “Neo JMB” militants' explosive of choice in Bangladesh, say bomb experts.

Though law enforcers could eliminate a number of militants through counterterrorism operations over the last one year, they are yet to complete probe into any of the incidents. A massive crackdown on militant networks was launched following the deadly terror attack at Holey Artisan Bakery in the capital's Gulshan on July 1 last year.

In the wake of growing militant activities in the country, the government has significantly increased allocation in the proposed budget

Cases relating to women and children repression hardly see any convictions because many complainants bring false charges of dowry-related torture and killing just to get the cases tried in fast-track tribunals.

Less than 2 percent of all rape cases filed in the last five years ended in conviction. This is mainly because many perpetrators force the victims to settle the matter outside courts and the legal process is so humiliating that the victims back out. Data for Dhaka metropolitan areas paint an even grimmer picture. Just 1.06 percent cases saw convictions in the last 15 years, according court and prosecution sources.

Customs Intelligence's raid on Apan Jewellers and finding 286kg gold apparently without valid documents reveal nothing new since the jewellery business in Bangladesh has been going on for decades with smuggled gold.