Why the state cannot blame Dhaka’s lawlessness on criminals alone
When a regime falls, local power dynamics often simply change hands. The government may insist no formal extortion demand was logged, but in the public mind, extortion and political patronage go hand in hand
At half past six on 26 September Saturday morning, 15 to 20 men gathered outside an eight-storey house in Adabor's Shyamoli Housing. Two carried machetes and another one carried a "ramda". A man with a pistol stood back and gave orders: They struck at the gate, smashed the CCTV camera and shouted for money.
Monir Hossain, the building owner's nephew, called 999. The police arrived at a quarter to 10, three hours after the attack began. The men were long gone by then. It was not the worst incident of the week. It barely made the news.
Within a few days, a maternal and child health centre in Mirpur-1 that had served the area for nearly 50 years was flattened by an excavator at midnight brought allegedly by a ruling party leader.
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Elsewhere in Mirpur's ECB Chattar on the same day after midnight, prominent YouTuber Salman Muqtadir's studio was wrecked by armed men who arrived in five pickup trucks.
And in another incident in Gulistan the same evening, a mob broke up the meeting of a registered political party, JASAD, inside the party's own office, and police then detained 289 people.
Running underneath all of it was a second crisis of crude bombs going off across the city in the second and third weeks of September, outside the Supreme Court, on the Dhaka University campus, at Kamalapur station, and in front of Jatrabari Police Station, along with buses being set on fire.
This sudden surge in sabotage, property grabs, and extortion stems from a dangerous political vacuum. When a regime falls, local power dynamics often simply change hands. Add to this the toxic persistence of extortion. The government may insist no formal extortion demand was logged, but in the public mind, extortion and political patronage go hand in hand.
When the watchmen just watch
At the Radda MCH-FP Centre, which has provided vaccination and family planning services in Mirpur since 1976, some 200 to 250 people held two guards hostage. They looted an ultrasound machine, vaccines and cash, then brought in heavy machinery.
The clinic puts its losses at Tk1.5 crore. The case names a local BNP leader, who denies involvement, and locals have linked a reserved-seat BNP lawmaker to the cooperative claiming the land, which she also denies.
CCTV footage obtained by TBS shows a police vehicle stopping at the clinic gate at around 1:30am while looted goods were being loaded onto a pickup.
The first four men arrested after the attack were in their early 20s, and three of them were homeless men from around the Shah Ali Mazar. Police say they admitted joining the attackers for money. The officer-in-charge of Shah Ali Police Station, less than a kilometre away, has since been withdrawn "for administrative reasons".
Nur Khan Liton, human rights activist and adviser to the Human Rights Support Society, explains why the police hesitate.
"Whenever the ruling party is present in an incident, directly or indirectly, it is very difficult for the police to take a stand, because the police have still not recovered. They will only be able to act if a strong message comes from the highest levels of government," he said.
That message has been mixed.
A day and a half after the demolition, a vaccinator named Kohinoor Begum stretched a tarpaulin over some tables behind the rubble at Radda and gave measles jabs to more than 100 children. No ministry sent her, and no committee asked her to come. She simply turned up to fulfill her duties. Can the government do the same?
At the Police Medal 2026 Ceremony, Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed gave officers until 31 December to show visible change and said people no longer wanted police "behaving like kings". In the same speech, he promised rewards to those who bring "the accomplices of fascism" to justice. However, it did little to inspire confidence among the people.
Asif M Shahan, professor in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka, sees two failures feeding each other. "First, the ruling party is failing to bring its local leaders — and in some cases even its MPs — under discipline," he said. "Second, the police are not doing what they should."
He is not sure whether that comes from low morale or unwillingness. But ultimately, he says, this is the failure of the government and of the home minister, because the line ends with him.
There is also the older problem of money. Former Inspector General of Police Muhammad Nurul Huda points out that spending on law and order is revenue expenditure, not development expenditure, and revenue does not grow accordingly.
"Calling it a mob lets the organisers off also. Almost every one of these incidents gets described as mob violence, which suggests spontaneous anger with nobody in control," said Asif Shahan.
Rezaur Rahman Lenin, researcher and human rights activist, agrees, "Calling this kind of violence mob violence is itself a problem. These are clearly targeted attacks by identified actors — just look at Radda."
The cost is paid in trust
The home minister has called the attack on Salman Muqtadir's studio a land dispute, a fight over roughly 35 kathas between a developer and a retired senior military officer. He has described the content creator's accusation against the BNP as "sweeping".
On the specifics, he may well be right, but that is not the real issue. "Whether it was extortion or a private dispute," Shahan said, "it is the responsibility of the government to provide protection."
When the state fails to protect people, the consequences follow a familiar pattern. "Citizens' trust in institutions is falling," he warned, "and people will start taking the law into their own hands."
The consequences could be worse still. Asif Shahan remembers 2001–2006, when a similar slide produced the Rapid Action Battalion, which was cheered and even fashionable until its human rights abuse record caught up with it. "My concern is that something similar will be brought back," he said, "and that people will accept it again. A frightened city rarely worries about how order is restored.
"My fear is that it is creating a pathway for the Awami League to return," he added.
Make an example. And mean it.
The first remedy costs nothing except will. Where an MP's involvement is alleged, Shahan argues, the prime minister must act. "He is in no danger of losing his majority. Making an example of someone would send a message to other MPs that they are not immune."
The second is to stop reassigning officers for administrative reasons and start publishing what inquiries find. The committee on Radda was given a day to report. What it found, and what happens to anyone it named, will tell Dhaka more than any medal ceremony.
The third is slower and less glamorous: Steady investment in a force that, two years on, still does not seem sure of its footing, added Nurul Huda.
Lenin adds a fourth. "Accountability cannot be left to the ruling camp, where one faction's rights complaint is often another faction's turf war. Resistance must come from the people, uniting every section of society."
A day and a half after the demolition, a vaccinator named Kohinoor Begum stretched a tarpaulin over some tables behind the rubble at Radda and gave measles jabs to more than 100 children. No ministry sent her, and no committee asked her to come. She simply turned up to fulfill her duties.
Can the government do the same?
Shadique Mahbub Islam is a journalist.
