Despite repeated calls by the government to deposit the looted firearms and ammunition at the nearest police station, more than 300,000 rounds of ammunition and nearly 2,000 weapons have not yet been recovered.
The government is conducting a nationwide joint operation to recover weapons from Wednesday. Members of the Armed Forces, BGB, Coast Guard, Police, RAB and Ansar will take part in this joint operation.
After the first meeting of the Interim Government Law and Order Affairs Advisory Council yesterday, Home Affairs Advisor Lieutenant General (Retd.) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said that the last time to submit all the weapons including weapons of those whose license has been suspended was until Tuesday night.
After the fall of the Hasina government on August 5 in a popular uprising, angry mobs looted firearms and ammunition from various police stations and institutions in the country.
The police headquarters has repeatedly called for the surrender of arms and ammunition since August 12 and the deadline for surrendering them expired yesterday.
According to the information of the police headquarters, 5 thousand 829 firearms and 6 lakh 6 thousand 742 bullets were looted from the police, various police stations and institutions.
Among them, 3 thousand 763 weapons and 286 thousand 82 bullets were recovered. In other words, two thousand 66 weapons and three lakh twenty thousand six hundred six hundred bullets are missing.
Weapons include rifles (Chinese), SMGs, pistols, shotguns, teargas launchers and signal pistols.
According to the police headquarters, 31 thousand 44 tear shells, 1 thousand 455 tear gas grenades, 4 thousand 692 sound grenades, 291 smoke grenades, 55 stun grenades, 893 multiple bang stun grenades and 177 tear gas sprays were looted.
Among them, 22 thousand 139 tear shells, 704 tear gas grenades, 2 thousand 116 sound grenades, 213 color smoke grenades, 18 stun grenades, 533 multiple bang stun grenades and 94 tear gas sprays have been recovered.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Headquarters. Rezaul Karim told The Daily Star, “During the joint operation, we will recover illegal firearms along with looted weapons.”
According to sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the current government has suspended the firearms licenses given to civilians during the Awami League government from January 6, 2009 to August 5, 2024. The instructions were given on August 25.
According to police and home ministry sources, the government has taken this decision due to indiscriminate firing by the leaders and activists of Awami League and its allied organizations to suppress the peaceful student movement.
A top official of the Ministry of Home Affairs said that the time to submit these firearms also ended yesterday. As a result these weapons will be considered illegal and those in possession of these weapons must be prosecuted.
There are about 50,310 valid arms license holders in the Special Branch (SB) database of the police. However, the officials have not yet confirmed how many licenses have been given by the Awami League government.
Another top official of the police headquarters, who did not want to be named, said, ‘We will add the information of the weapons deposited in the database and then we can tell how many weapons are still unaccounted for.’