Looting of police stations: 2,000 arms, 3 lakh bullets still missing

Despite repeated calls by the government to submit the looted firearms and bullets to nearby police stations, over three lakh bullets and  2,000 guns remain missing.
To recover those, the government announced that a joint drive, comprising the members of armed forces, BGB, Coast Guard, Police, Rab, and Ansar, will be launched across the country from midnight today.
The operations will begin from 12:00am as yesterday was the last day to hand over the guns, including those whose licences have been suspended, said home affairs adviser Lt Gen (retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury after the first meeting of the advisory council on law and order at the Secretariat yesterday.
After the fall of Hasina-led government on August 5 amid an uprising, mobs looted firearms and bullets from different police stations and establishments across the country.
They also attacked on-duty law enforcers on the streets and looted their arms.
After the formation of the interim government, the Police Headquarters asked people several times to hand over those guns and bullets since August 12, and the time to do it ended yesterday.
According to the PHQ database, 5,829 firearms and 6,06,742 bullets were looted from police, different police stations, and establishments.
Of those, 3,763 guns and 2,86,082 lakh bullets were recovered, meaning that 2,066 arms and 3,20,660 bullets remain missing.
The guns include Chinese rifle, SMG, pistol, shotgun, teargas launcher, and signal pistol.
The PHQ database shows 31,044 teargas shells, 1,455 teargas grenades, 4,692 sound grenades, 291 color smoke grenades, 55 stun grenades, 893 bang grenades, and 177 teargas spray were also looted.
Of those, 22,139 teargas shells, 704 teargas grenades, 2,116 sound grenades, 213 color smoke grenades, 18 stun grenades, 533 bang grenades, and 94 teargas spray have been recovered so far.
“We will also recover the illegal firearms, along with the looted ones, during the joint drive,” Md Rezaul Karim, deputy inspector general of the PHQ, told this newspaper.
Home ministry sources said the government on August 25 suspended licences of firearms issued to civilians over the past 15 years — January 6, 2009, and August 5, 2024 — during the tenure of the AL government.
The government has made the decision as people, especially members of the AL and its affiliated bodies, opened fired indiscriminately to suppress the peaceful student movement, according to home ministry and police sources.
The time to submit those firearms also ended yesterday. The firearms will be considered illegal, and those who keep the guns must face legal action, said a top official of the home ministry.
According to sources in Special Branch (SB) of Police, there are details of around 50,310 legal arms licence holders in the database. However, the officials are yet to get the actual figure of how many legal guns were issued during the tenure of the AL government.
“We will put the information of the submitted guns in the database tomorrow [today] and then we can say how many arms remain missing,” said another top PHQ official, wishing not to be named.
Md Kamrul Ahsan, additional DIG (confidential) of the PHQ, told this newspaper that these firearms are state property so that people should hand over the guns and give information regarding it to the nearby police stations whenever anyone gets any information.