Badrul Ahsan :
The initiatives taken by the government and the private sector have failed to put a brake on the theft of vehicles across the country.
According to data available with the Bangladesh Police (headquarters), the number of such incidents rather increased instead going down.
The data showed that 2,751 complaints of vehicle theft were recorded with the police stations across the country in 2014 against 2,597 in 2013 and 2,660 in 2012.
During the January- September period of the current year, around 2,600 vehicles had been stolen, the data revealed.
The vehicles included goods laden trucks and lorries carrying goods both for local delivery and for exports, private cars, CNG-run auto rickshaw and other.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) under the Communication Ministry on October 31, 2012 had introduced the retro-reflective number plate (RFID) system, popularly known as digital number plates with radio frequency identification chip on vehicles to improve security and other services in the transport sector.
The BRTA also installed a number of close circuit cameras (CCTV) in different important points of the city for a easy track of such incidents. Besides, a number of private sector companies, including Nitol-Niloy Group and Grameen Phone and Banglalink, also introduced different types of vehicle tracking devices in the market commercially. But the trend of theft defied all the measures.
Business leaders expressed their dissatisfaction at the increasing trend of vehicle hijack.
“We are frustrated at the increasing trend of goods laden vehicle thefts. In many cases the miscreants loot our trucks murdering both drivers and helpers at a time for which we are facing shortage of drivers,” President of Bangladesh Auto Re-Rolling and Steel Mills Association, Sheikh Masadul Alam Masud said.
“Frequent hijacking of goods laden trucks has emerged a big headache for the exporters and also for the local market players,” former President of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmed told the New Nation.
“Several times we have sat with the home ministry officials for a remedy, but still the trend is upward.”
The apex chamber president, however, urged the government to take immediate initiatives to curb it.
He said the government could also install close-circuit (CC) cameras at different places on highways and enhance highway police vigilance. However, law enforcement agencies said lack of awareness and insufficient resources of the police department were the main reasons for the worsening scenario.
“We found that most of the stolen vehicles were of old model transports. For, most of the time drivers do not stay with the vehicles and their vehicles can be unlocked by others easily,” an Assistant Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) told The New Nation on Tuesday preferring anonymity.
“Besides, the thieves are also clever. In many cases, they open the RFID plates immediately after capturing vehicles for which our trackers cannot find those out,” he added.
“If the people are quite aware about safety of their vehicles, then such incidents will go down by more than fifty per cent.” he said.
“To bring down such incidents, the owners can install the tracking system in their vehicles by which they will be able to track their vehicles even sitting at home. Or if they keep a silent mobile phone inside the vehicle, then also tracking will be easier.”
A Deputy Inspector General (crime) of Bangladesh Police preferring anonymity said, RFID and other private sector tracking systems in many cases were helping them in recovering the stolen vehicles, but insufficient tracking equipment was cutting their success rate.
“We are very much active against vehicle hijacking, but we have some limitations like insufficient equipment and others for tracking,” he said.
“We have a plan to strengthen the vehicle tracking system across the country and we will increase drives against such theft,” he said.
He, however, told The new Nation that due to the vigorous efforts by the law enforcers, a total of 1,258 vehicles had been recovered last year against less than 1,100 a year ago.
“Besides, a total of 2,064 culprits involved with the crime had also been detained,” he added.
