Dhaka: Mohammadpur’s Geneva Camp is known as the drug capital of the city where drug dealers set up shop before sunrise. This business goes on until late at night. This area is bustling with the presence of these drug dealers day and night. In this half-kilometer area, you can see drug dealers step by step. Even if you walk on the road in your own mind, the same sentence comes from all around you, ‘What do you want, brother’! It seems that they are not lacking in hospitality from the ‘big brothers’!
Last Saturday, at around 6 pm, a terrible shooting incident took place over the dominance of the drug trade. At least 3 people, including a child, were injured in the incident. The same incident was repeated again that night; a clash broke out over dominance. However, even after such a big incident, this area has turned into a fair for drug dealers before morning.
Sunday (August 20) 10 am. While moving towards Geneva Camp from College Gate along Ghaznavi Road, everything was normal, but there was a problem as we moved forward. As soon as you enter the Geneva Camp road from Ghaznavi Road, you can see adult Bihari youths on the right. They are standing at certain places. Whenever they see young boys, they shout loudly, "What do you want, big brother?" Some young men have also been seen responding to their call.
In addition, people from different walks of life, including rickshaw pullers and CNG-powered auto-rickshaw drivers, are seen coming forward to their call. This reporter came across at least a dozen drug dealers in this Geneva Camp, which is half a kilometer in area. The reporter also had to face calls like "What do you want, big brother?"
When asked why a local vegetable seller in a van was called, he told Barta24.com that they all sell ganja.
Is it just ganja? In response to the question, he said, "No, if you contact them, they can manage all kinds of addictions."
When asked about it from another local resident, he said, "Most of the Bihari camp here are ganja and yaba sellers. Their profession is selling drugs. There is no one to tell them anything here." They are the government here. If anyone says anything to them, they will kill him. No one at the police station can do anything to them.
Many locals have complained like this. However, almost everyone is reluctant to speak out for fear of them; naming is out of the question!
Meanwhile, officials have also said that the police are struggling to deal with such a situation due to the shortage of manpower at the police station.
After the shooting incident on Saturday, Mohammadpur Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Ali Iftekhar said, we are taking legal action in this incident. However, as our police station is short of manpower, we are having some difficulty.
On Saturday (October 26) evening, three people, including a child, were shot in the capital's Mohammadpur Geneva Camp by drug dealers. The injured were Amin (27), Shafiq (32) and child Sajjan (8). The injured have been rescued and admitted to Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital.
At that time, locals said that in the evening, a fierce shooting suddenly started inside the Geneva Camp which took a more terrifying form than other days. The residents of Taj Mahal Road, Babar Road and Humayun Road started running in fear after hearing the sudden sound of gunfire. Shops and traffic in the entire area came to a standstill after the sound of gunfire since evening. Residents said that the gunfire was heard intermittently until nightfall.
Sources said that to suppress the anti-discrimination student movement, former MP Jahangir Kabir Nanak, through Councilor Rashtran, gave various types of heavy weapons including rifles and cocktail bombs to the drug dealers in the Geneva camp. After the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government, the illegal heavy weapons given by Nanak, along with the weapons looted from Mohammadpur and Adabor police stations on August 5, drug dealers have been engaged in fierce clashes for the past two months. In these clashes between drug dealers in the past few months, 6 people have lost their lives so far and several have been seriously injured.
The fierce clash is the result of a feud between the camp's top drug dealer Sohel alias Bunia Sohel, Galkata Manu, Chua Selim, Akram, Shah Alam, Picchi Raja and Kalim Jambu. However, despite the long-standing conflict, the local police, RAB and army have not taken any firm action, and the conflict is becoming fiercer day by day.