Crime

Shayera Moula

Women carrying large bags are common targets of speed muggers.

Dhaka city doesn't sleep at night. Shops all closed and office gates shut tight, Dhaka in fact stays very awake and watches your every move. At the end of a day's work, after a family dinner outside, evening classes or any other occasion when you are heading back to the four corners of your secure home, Dhaka watches you.

Last month, a moneychanger, Faruk Ahmed Khan, was shot by a gang of muggers travelling in a car in Gulshan while he was returning to his residence from his office along with his business partner in a rickshaw. His nephew claimed that the muggers stopped and snatched Tk 2 lakhs from them around the Saudi Arabian embassy along with two mobile phone sets after "spraying bullets on them". That is but of course one of the extreme cases.

Mugging by people in speeding cars is on the rise. Although a recent crossfire between the police and supposed muggers would sound like an action-packed amusement to some, those who have been victims to the car-infested muggings felt a little better knowing that at least someone got hurt in the name of mugging. “Hope they now know what it felt like when I was dragged off the rickshaw and onto the cement road for a few metres before my three-week-long bed rest,” says Samia (not her real name), a girl who was going to a friend's place in Gulshan 2 at 8.45pm on an otherwise casual night.

Snatching bags from passengers on rickshaws or from people on the roadside where the muggers are in cars can be referred to as speed-mugging. It happens so fast that you don't know whether to run after the car, remember the car plate number or just yell for help. The timeline for this incident is literally three seconds at most.

But sometimes the alternative doesn't help either. "I was right next to a bank in Gulshan 2 screaming behind the car from which someone just took away all my expensive belongings and right across the road I could see a policeman just standing there like an idiot as if nothing had happened. Why was he placed there anyway? What is his purpose?” demands another working woman in her mid-twenties who was returning home with her husband. A few minutes later she got a call from her friend, who was on a separate rickshaw up front, crying in a panic tone. The same people had mugged her too. That was really a good two birds at one throw. “Of course the muggers had been following us for a while.”

They follow you very keenly indeed. On a rainy 9.30pm, with all lights out and people scattered under roadside shelters, Farah (not her real name) too was returning after an evening class back to Niketon through a narrow lane around Gulshan 1 market where a silver car crept behind her rickshaw and suddenly a hand grabbed onto her bag making a quick pull. She tried fighting for her belongings but they drove off. She was lucky because most girls whose arms get locked into the bags are dragged along the road hastily. The damage then is hammered into a three-fold mess -- psychological, emotional and physical.

“We knew that these things happen often in Dhanmondi and at times we heard that they even take the girl along into the car," says a man who with his wife got mugged just a month and a half ago. “We were walking home in Banani when a car with men in their twenties stopped before us and seized all of my wife's jewellery. They took off but we immediately called them and told them that there were some very important documents we needed badly. They told us where to collect it from and left it there. We later went with other family members to the location to retrieve it."

Speed muggers are nice people really, mentions another. Her friend's father knew the old Officer in Charge of the Gulshan thana, made some calls and she got her passport and the visa to America back in a few hours. "It's as if the police knew exactly where the passport was." In fact, two others standing on the roadside across Westin Hotel had a car zoom past them robbing the valuables on the way, suddenly stopped the car, came back and deposited all necessary documents such as passports, national identity cards and took off again. Almost baffled by the situation, the victims really didn't know whether to be scared or grateful.

The muggers' age ranges between the twenties and thirties and they look like fine gentlemen taking a sweet stroll in their lavish vehicles. "The guy (who mugged me) had well cropped hair, was decently dressed, so I am guessing he was well off … his eyes and his pupils were dilated which means there was a good chance that he was under the influence," says another victim. Rumour has it that they "donate" a percentage of their evening earnings to their police-mate. They must be addicts in search of some extra pocket money or maybe they are just searching for some adventure amidst their dull days packed with classes, assignments and report presentations. But one thing is clear -- mugging is not directly linked with poverty and the fences of money built around these rich neighbourhoods aren't as secure as one had hoped it would be.

The police, naturally, are no help at all. One victim shot her voice at them asking for help and the most she got was a “we ourselves have no protection, how are we supposed to help you?” That only means that after 8pm on the roads of scorching Dhaka heat you are your only bodyguard. "You can have anyone sit next to you, but it won't help," says Sabrina (not her real name).

It appears that most of the victims are women and that too because they carry larger bags. Those who have been mugged have now modified their lifestyles in more ways than one -- less travelling via rickshaw, less or no jewellery, smaller bags and a heightened sense of consciousness every time a car passes by.

The path towards recovery in itself is filled with terror. If there weren't enough worries about a girl travelling on her own before, it has only been magnified. It only takes someone to brush past your bag to accelerate your heart rate out of control. It only takes one look from a stranger sitting in a car for you to clutch onto your bag tighter. It only takes another sunset for you to run back home before they start following you.

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