Badrul Ahsan :
The recovery of illegal fire-arms by the law enforcers has marked a stiff rise in the last couple of months transpiring grave concern about the public safety.
The rise has also led many security officials and experts to believe that entry of illegal fire arms into the country has also gone up.
The Bangladesh Police has recorded about 821 firearms recovery cases in the last four months until October, 2015, nearly 24 per cent increase compared with 715 recovered during the corresponding period of 2014. The number of such cases recorded 2,023 in the year 2014 and 1,517 in 2013.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) data showed that around 193 firearms were recovered in the first ten months of the current year in the capital and more than 90 per cent of those were small and light weapons.
The recovered fire-arms, according to the law enforcers, were revolvers, pistols and rifles.
The arms recovered by different law-enforcing agencies also include submachine guns, assault rifles, light assault rifles and light machine guns although they are small in number.
“Both use and recoveries of illegal fire-arms are gradually increasing across the country,” said a high official of Detective Branch’s DB Arms Recovery and Protection Team told The New Nation preferring anonymity.
According to him, majority of the illegal arms entering the country from neighbouring India largely through the land ports.
“After entering the country, the firearms are then brought to the capital and taken to other districts by roads and rivers,” he said.
The DB official said, the traders sell their smuggled weapons ranging from Tk 10,000 to Tk 20,000 or above depending on their type and origin.
He said, small firearms are also rented out to various criminals like muggers, extortionists and robbers for committing crimes.
However, a senior police official at the Police Headquarters admitted the increasing illegal use of small arms and said that the police had intensified their intelligence activities in and around the border areas from where consignments of illegal firearms were being smuggled into the country.
“We have intensified our vigilance in and around the city and some other important cities and points to stop supplies of firearms,” he said.
Law enforcement agency sources have located nearly 35 points in six border districts like Benapole, Sharsha, Chowgachha, Satkhira, Debhata, Kaliganj, Kalaroa of Jessore, Moheshpur of Jhenidah, Daulatpur of Kushtia and various points of Chuadanga where arms smugglers are active in carrying out their illicit trade, he informed.
“Though we, the law enforcers, sometimes nab gunrunners along with small consignments of illegal arms, the kingpins remain out of the reach as they have links with highly influential persons,” the high official said.
Meanwhile, according to a study of the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), firearms are the sources of more than 500,000 deaths around the world every year, that is, one person every minute on an average.
Eleven percent of the crimes in Bangladesh are committed by small arms, the study revealed.
Senior research fellow of BIISS Ashique Rahman said, it is very difficult to control the flow of prohibited firearms as there is no international treaty to tackle cross-border gunrunners.
