Robberies in upscale Bangladesh areas worry friends in Kolkata
Times of India | 9 August 2024
Representative image KOLKATA: Citizens of Kolkata are worried that in the absence of cops, many of their friends and relatives in Dhaka, especially those living in upscale Uttara, have spent a sleepless night on Wednesday amid fears of robbery and looting. While many formed community WhatsApp groups to alert each other, a few employed drones to pursue and deter miscreants.Others took to the streets, armed with sticks and bats, maintaining a steadfast vigil throughout the night.
Kanishka Chakraborty, who has worked in Dhaka for 25 years as a communications professional, is now based in Kolkata. He has been keeping in touch with his friends there. "I have got first-hand accounts from friends about attempted robberies. What I learnt is that Dhaka now has a concept of citizen's watch. It is heartening to see the younger generation out on the streets, controlling traffic, cleaning trash and keeping watch at night."
On Wednesday night, film-maker Amitabh Reza Chowdhury took to social media to post about these robberies. "In the past couple of days, we have been witness to an outburst of anger against the previous govt's administration. All thanas have been looted and the chain of command has been destroyed. Some robbers and thieves tried to attack houses to take advantage of the situation. This is not communal violence but the work of petty thieves who have been let loose in various parts of Dhaka, including Uttara, Mohammadpur and Savar," Chowdhury said.
People of Uttara have created a 900-member group to protect the locality. "The youth and the common people came out to the streets to protect others. There was a definite plan on how we were to go about preventing robbery attempts. We will be staying up on Thursday night too. The Army is helping us control the situation. We are all hoping the situation improves in the next couple of days," Reza added.
Shadman Faiyaz, a postgraduate scholar at the Independent University of Bangladesh, who was out all night patrolling the streets, told TOI, "We formed a WhatsApp group on Wednesday where we continuously added people from our neighbourhood in Uttara. That's how the initiative gained momentum. The objective was to disseminate and exchange information geographically and keep each other informed about the happenings in real-time. Some of the robbers were armed. Therefore, we carried sticks and bats for self-defence. We plan to keep watch for a few more nights."
Though women were not present on the streets, many played a pivotal role in overseeing the community groups. Sabrina Tasneem, an employee at a consultancy firm, said, "Miscreants targeted several residences in Sector 4, 11 and 13 on Wednesday night. Some of these attempts were thwarted due to the vigilance of our community WhatsApp groups. I saw students using drones to intercept and deter the criminals, and hand them over to the Army."