Mohammad Jamil Khan

An undocumented Bangladeshi migrant worker choosing to enter Europe from Libya, will almost certainly be held captive by armed militias, tortured, and their families extorted for lakhs of taka.

It seems like the election years bring “blessings” for the police force, since, if not anything else, the number of Police Awards recipients increases manifold right after the national polls.

Around 40 days after the arson attack on Benapole Express on January 5, police handed over bodies of four victims to their relatives from Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue yesterday.

A year ago, attending school was a distant dream for 10-year-old Alamin Islam.

“We are in danger. Please save us!”

Land sprawling across acres, mansions fit for royalty, and a fleet of gleaming cars -- the “brothers in crime” of the “Bhai-Bhai” syndicate have built an empire by smuggling gold through the Benapole border.

Police have arrested a member of a transnational syndicate that is trafficking women from Bangladesh to India and the Middle East.

Just a day after securing bail in five cases filed under the anti-terrorism act and coming out of jail, Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani, chief of banned outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team, started planning for sabotage activities in full swing.

An investigation has found evidence that an additional superintendent of police and an inspector had physically tortured four men in custody at a police station in Shariatpur last year. 

Drug traffickers have been transporting cocaine through Bangladesh from certain East African countries to India for years, said officials at the Department of Narcotics Control.

On the night of January 23 last year, Abdullah Munshi landed at Dhaka airport from Dubai and took a CNG-run autorickshaw to go to his brother’s house in Khilgaon around 11:00.

Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani, chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, an Al-Qaeda-inspired militant outfit now known as Ansar al Islam, was released from the Kashimpur High Security Central Jail in Gazipur on Sunday.

“Fire, fire”. Sharmin Akter, 22, woke up hearing these desperate cries which shattered the stillness of the night in Mollabari Slum in Tejgaon yesterday. Her immediate thought was to save her one-and-a-half-year-old son, Nafi Hossain.

Despite the national election being over, thousands of posters and banners of candidates are still hanging across the country, causing potential hazards to the environment.

Dhaka, usually a cacophony of honking horns, blaring rickshaw bells, and the incessant hum of human activity, wore an almost deserted look yesterday during the national polls.

Masud Alam started his journey towards Dhaka from Bhanga Railway Station in carriage “Cha” of Benapole Express around 7:50pm on Friday.

With the country going to polls tomorrow, at least 86,000 inmates in 68 jails across the country also got a chance to exercise their franchise through postal ballots this time.

Many Bangladeshi sex workers, once victims themselves, now serve as brothel managers, perpetuating the vicious cycle. They employ fellow countrywomen, who later become traffickers responsible for bringing new girls from Bangladesh into the clutches of these brothels.

Law enforcers are now setting their focus completely on January 7, the election day. They are particularly preparing contingency plans for the final hours of voting, as violence often erupts between supporters of rival candidates during this time.

A quarter of all the polling centres are “risky”, according to police.