TDS Desk:

The security breakdown following the July-August ouster of a fascist government continues to gravely impact daily lives with teenage criminals and those in their early twenties playing a crucial role.

In some cases, political backing has also been traced, as BNP ringleaders take the helm of terror outfits tied to absconding Awami League fascists.

The criminal engagements of teenagers and young adults aged up to 25 years started growing during the Awami League fascist era, thanks partly to the unrestrained proliferation of smartphones. Since 5 August, their activities have caught renewed attention. In the capital’s Mohmmadpur area alone, the teenagers have murdered 10 people since the downfall of Awami League regime. The crimes also included snatching, rape and a daring bank heist.

Social scientist and Dhaka University Associate Professor Dr Tawohidul Haque has blamed the near-zero attention given to teenagers in the majority of families in the country for the unchecked rise in juvenile delinquency. In an exchange with the Bangla daily Bangladesh Pratidin, Dr Tawohidul said guardians need to enhance interpersonal ties with their teenage family members on a priority basis.

The teenagers’ increasingly unruly adventurousness first came to light on 19 December, when a 22-year old led two others, each barely 16 years old, into a bank heist in Keraniganj, Dhaka. While the 22-year old Nirob drives a car for a living, the other two are seventh-graders. The trio planned their daring bank robbery and hostage taking mission after watching a “movie,” according to confessions given to police.

On Friday, two separate incidents of daring raids occurred in Adabor, one of the capital’s posh areas. In the first case, Adabor police arrested two youths in their early 20s for looting 45-bhori gold from a residential apartment.

On the same day, in the same area, hundreds of members of a “teenage criminal group” attacked locals with domestic weapons for “daring to obstruct their terror parade.” The brainchild behind the parade was Sumon alias DB Sumon, a notorious drug peddler. He once worked for the area’s Awami League ward councilors. But now he has allegedly become a henchman of a BNP leader, as the ward councilors remain in hiding fearing public wrath against Awami League’s oppression and corruption committed during its 15 years in power.

According to the home ministry, 237 teenage criminal gangs are active in the country, the most being in Dhaka. There are 127 teenage gangs in Dhaka city, with nearly 1,400 members, and 57 in Chattogram city. The latest data from police headquarters indicate that 40% of criminal activities conducted in Dhaka can be attributed to teenagers.

These “little criminals” are also committing rape, murder and human trafficking in other urban areas of the country including Khulna city and Gazipur city.

On 15 December, teenage gang members allegedly stabbed to death a youth when trying to snatch the latter’s belongings in the capital’s Moghbazar area. Three days later, two teenage snatchers killed a youth in a similar incident at the capital’s Sayedabad. Police later managed to apprehend the two criminals.