The country worries about kishor gangs. But what has it built for teenagers?

Illustration: TBS

Bangladesh is confronting growing anxiety about its adolescents. The recent murder of 13-year-old Ishayat Shahriar Apratim in Cumilla brought fears about juvenile crime and children's safety back to the centre of public discussion.

Police data have also shown that 15,717 children were reported missing between January and July this year. As many as 15,243 were aged between 10 and 17. Of the total, 13,679 were eventually rescued or returned home, while 2,038 remained untraced when Police Headquarters released the figures.

At the same time, law enforcement agencies have intensified operations against what Bangladesh commonly calls kishor gangs. Dhaka Metropolitan Police's latest list identifies 122 active criminal gangs in the capital.

Yet the age breakdown itself complicates the term. Among 893 members whose ages were recorded, only 152, or around 17%, were below 18. Another 322 were between 18 and 20. Their crimes range from mugging and drug dealing to extortion and contract killing. Police and researchers also point to the involvement of older criminals and influential patrons.

Teenagers involved in serious crimes must face the law. But the conversation cannot stop at the image of a teenager carrying a machete. There is another way to frame the problem: Why do some teenagers turn to gangs, and do they have enough opportunities to play sports, spend time with friends and take part in cultural activities?

No places to play and read

Iraqi Field in Azimpur was once a large neighbourhood playground. Today, much of the nearly four-acre space is occupied by makeshift commercial activity, leaving little room for children to play.

This is not unique to Dhaka. In June, the Directorate of Primary Education ordered preparations to make sports compulsory from Class IV in government primary schools. The directive also noted that nearly 11,000 government primary schools have no playground.

The government has announced plans for 101 parks, while schools with playgrounds have been asked to identify what is needed to make them usable. These measures highlight the scale of the gap.

A football field does more than produce players. It gives a 14-year-old people to look up to and a community to belong to. The same is true of cricket, swimming, scouts, theatre, music, debate and photography. When such communities disappear, teenagers do not stop seeking belonging. They find it elsewhere.

A 2026 study, "Towards a Child- and Youth-Friendly Dhaka: Co-Creating a Rayer Bazar to Grow Up in", found that only 2% of Dhaka's children have access to play spaces and parks. In Rayer Bazar, only four in 10 children surveyed were allowed outdoors alone, while 30% did not play outside at all. Parents cited unsafe roads, accidents, kishor gangs and, for girls, fears of sexual harassment.

The problem extends beyond playgrounds. Bangladesh values education, but that does not necessarily create a reading culture.

A 2025 University of Dhaka study, "Cultivating a Reading Culture: How Parents' Perceptions of Reading Shape Their Practices in Bangladesh", found that many parents viewed reading mainly as an academic exercise. Stories were often seen as distractions from formal study, leading parents to limit access to extracurricular books.

Infographic: TBS

The result is a contradiction: children face constant pressure to study while developing little habit of reading for pleasure.

Libraries can help. Bangladesh's mobile libraries serve around 3,200 locations through 76 vehicles, while the government has proposed upazila cultural centres with libraries.

But the question remains the same: do teenagers have welcoming cultural spaces they can easily use every day, or must they make a special effort to find them?

When leisure moved to the screen

Research on leisure in Dhaka has found a shift from outdoor activities towards digital gaming. Researchers have linked this to technology, safety concerns, academic pressure, family dynamics and urban living. Digital leisure can be an adaptation to the environment around young people.

Digital life is not inherently destructive. Young people learn, communicate, make friends, create art and find online communities. But when screens become the only available form of recreation, their role changes. Society then complains about young people's behaviour without examining the environment that helped shape it in the first place.

There are genuine online risks. A UNICEF poll involving almost 29,000 young people in Bangladesh found misinformation to be the most commonly reported source of social media stress. Respondents also pointed to bullying, negative comments and harmful content.

The concern, therefore, should not simply be that teenagers are online. It should also be whether their offline lives offer enough alternatives.

A 2025 study titled "Juvenile Delinquency: A Study on Young Gang Culture in Dhaka City", published in the National Defence College E-Journal, surveyed 80 male juvenile delinquents from Mohammadpur Geneva Camp and Kamrangirchar. Among the factors examined as contributing to gang formation, "not having places to spend leisure time" received the highest average score, 4.37 out of five. Social media connections scored 4.12, pressure from local seniors 4.00, and joining for adventure 3.96.

This does not mean a lack of playgrounds directly causes crime. The study used a purposive sample of boys already associated with delinquency and cannot represent all teenagers in Dhaka. It identified economic, family, social and cultural factors as well. But it raises questions often missing from discussions of kishor gangs: where young people spend their free time, what they can do there, and whom they spend it with.

Finding belonging in gangs

This is where the discussion around kishor gangs becomes more complicated.

Gang involvement cannot be reduced to a shortage of football fields. Poverty, family instability, school dropout, drugs, criminal networks, local power structures and many other factors matter.

But belonging matters too. A gang, in other words, can provide something. Friends. Identity. Protection. Status. Excitement. A reputation in the neighbourhood.

Dr Helal Uddin Ahmed, associate professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Hospital, noted that being recognised by friends and peers matters to teenagers, especially in the age of social media.

"This is driven by peer recognition. As likes and followers increase, they begin to see themselves as heroes among peers who think similarly. The more deeply this idea takes root, the more abnormal behaviours can become part of their lives," he said.

He argues that simply warning young people against such behaviour is not enough. 

"Our task is to move young people away from the destructive forms of that culture and provide positive examples. That is a major social problem. We need to create an alternative form of 'coolness' — one based on being genuinely smart, capable and admirable."

Bangladesh's current response is heavily focused on enforcement. Recent drives have seen hundreds of young people detained for questioning in different districts, while authorities have promised stronger action against gang networks.

Policing is necessary when crimes are committed. But police arrive near the end of the process.

Md Rezaul Karim Shohag, chairman of the Department of Criminology at the University of Dhaka, argues that intervention has to begin much earlier.

"The government also needs to address the economic and social conditions that push children towards these groups — poverty, unemployment, school dropout, child labour and the lack of safe recreational spaces," he said.

The 2025 study "Bad Youth: The Effects of Family Dynamics and Political Patronage on Juvenile Gang Crime in Dhaka, Bangladesh," published in KrimOJ, shows how that search for recognition can meet an organised gang structure. Interviews with gang members, parents and police found that inadequate parental involvement and family conflict could leave adolescents emotionally vulnerable and seeking identity and belonging elsewhere. Poverty could deepen those vulnerabilities, while political patronage offered protection and incentives for violence and extortion.

One gang member interviewed in Mirpur put it simply: "All I wanted was for someone to pay attention to me and care about what I had to say." He found that attention in the gang. But this belonging could intersect with a larger system: researchers also found accounts of political actors protecting young people and using them for intimidation and violence.

A 2023 paper, "Assessing Juvenile Gang Culture in Bangladesh from Youth Development Context," published in the PSC Journal of Police Staff College Bangladesh, places the problem within youth development. It noted that Bangladesh had about 57.15 million children, almost one-third of its population.

The paper identified inadequate recreation, poor parental supervision, social media, drugs and political patronage among factors associated with gang culture. It recommended regular games, sport and exercise, alongside stronger family and social bonds, education and skills development. Enforcement alone, it argued, addresses only part of the problem.

The harder part begins years before a police officer intervenes. It begins with whether children have safe places to play, schools that value sport and culture, access to reading, and neighbourhood spaces to socialise.

Bangladesh asks why teenagers spend so much time on screens, why some join gangs, and why they seem disconnected from healthy social life. It wants teenagers to choose alternatives. The question is: has the state made sure those alternatives actually exist?