MUNTAKIM SAAD

Muggers in Mohammadpur are no longer waiting for the cover of darkness.

Armed with machetes, knives, and other weapons, they mug in broad daylight.

On Saturday, a 17-year-old college student was mugged near Dhaka State College on Nurjahan Road around 4:15pm.

Three young men stopped the rickshaw he was on and took his phone at knifepoint. The incident was caught on a security camera, and people nearby saw it.

“My son was shaken,” said ATM Saiful Islam, who filed a general diary (GD) with Mohammadpur Police Station, reporting a lost phone, but omitting the incident of mugging.

Three other similar incidents happened that day in the area. All of the victims reported that they had lost their belongings.

“If people are mugged on busy streets in broad daylight, how can they feel safe in this neighbourhood?” asked Rabeya Islam, a resident of Mohammadpur.

In January alone, police and Rab teams arrested at least 142 suspects with criminal records in Mohammadpur and its adjacent areas, according to text messages sent by the law enforcers.

They told this correspondent that they had not mentioned the mugging because they did not want to go to court to testify during the lengthy trial proceedings.

In one of the incidents that happened right next to the police station around 8:25pm, an O-levels student was “robbed of his very expensive iPhone 15 Pro, wallet, and watch”, said his elder brother Tanjil Islam Tanvir.

The muggers, three men with sharp weapons, even forced the boy to tell them the password to his phone.

Around 7:00pm the same day, United International University student Suad Hossain was mugged near Tin Rastar Mor on Mohammadpur Beribandh, which is a busy road. The muggers, wearing masks, took his phone and wallet.

In another incident, Riaz Islam, an employee of a shipping company, was mugged in Nobodoy Housing.

“The miscreants made off with Tk Police

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