The two separate incidents of mugging in which Tk 11 million were snatched from employees of a bKash agency and a manager of a store at Mirpur and Khilgaon bring to the fore the danger of carrying cash in the city. In the film-style daring incident at Mirpur, a gang of eight muggers riding motor bikes swooped on the team of four couriers in the car that was also being escorted by four others on two motor cycles. The muggers obstructed the road by a garbage carrying rickshaw van and shot the driver of the car in his left leg in order to loot Tk 0.9 million. In the Khilgaon incident muggers had taken Tk 0.2 million from the store manager before shooting him also in the left leg. The manager too was heading for depositing the money, like bKash employees in Mirpur, to a bank.
Clearly bKash agents have become a primary target of this particular type of street robbery. The terminology, 'mugging' does not quite convey the aggression and desperation with which they attack their victims. That the bKash agents are soft targets is quite clear. The points from where they operate are so open a place that anyone with an ulterior motive can have a view of the transactions made. Now the agents have to carry money and the criminal gangs keep a tab on such persons' movement before launching a ferocious attack. Armed with lethal weapons or firearms, the gangs are determined to achieve their goal no matter if they have to slain their targets or others coming their way to foil their macabre mission.
Anyone can see how popular this easy-to-transfer mode of money transaction has become. Operated mostly by unemployed youths, such agencies not only serve a large number of clientele but also open the door to self-employment. But the issue of security has now become a cause for serious concern. A private service, it is not likely to enjoy the kind of security it deserves. But then considering the contribution it makes to the country's economy, arrangement of special security measures should perhaps be made.
So far as the carrying of big bKash amount is concerned in the capital or other large cities and towns, the task should follow the standard procedure of police escort. Not many, though, are interested in taking help from the police for reasons of lack of confidence in the agency or time waste when the service has to be fast and urgent. Here is an area where the law enforcement agency should work on in order to better and fast serve people in need of their help. For bKash agents, though, it is a daily affair to carry cash and if there is not a regular system of providing security, it will not prove highly effective.
In bKash points located in village markets or small towns, the amount involved is not often big but still in the context of money flow in those areas, the amount bKash agents handle is quite substantial. One advantage there, though, is the familiarity of criminal goons and those operating agencies can most of the time take timely measures against any such foul attempts. Yet this is no guarantee that they will never fall victim to street robbery.
All this, therefore, leads to the debate of the law and order situation in the country and more particularly to the role of those people who are supposed to enforce those in order to maintain peace and discipline in society. The news of busting the den of muggers, who use 'malam' (balm or ointment), by the police often makes people hopeful that such criminals will run away with their tails in their legs. After a temporary lull though they reappear and claim their victims. Not that one or two such gangs make the total force of the muggers. But the cooperation between such gangs in operating in specific zones cannot be denied. Then reason dictates that questioning of a few members of such gangs should easily lead to the whereabouts of the rest.
This does not happen because the gangs are quite adept in greasing the palms of those who should not only have known where they stay, operate and how but also made it a point not to tolerate them. This, unfortunately, is not the case. Any complaint that the police here are inefficient is nothing but gross undermining of them. How they solved the mystery of the murder of a Saudi diplomat and how they recovered the goods stolen from an officer of the Indian High Commission years ago vouchsafe for the ability of the law enforcers.
So the criminal nexus can grow and prosper by default of the police action. Whether inaction is prompted by deliberate withdrawal is however an altogether different matter. The common perception is that if the police are serious, they can solve any mystery and get at the criminals in double quick rime. Where money is involved, crime is quick to follow it in some form or other. But when it becomes highly risky for carrying cash only because muggers prowl the streets and alleys, it does hardly any credit to the law enforcement agencies. Counter-measures by law enforcers can foil such nefarious plans. They should come down heavily upon the criminal gangs with full force in order to ensure security of life and cash.
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