Armed & dangerous

Khamin reveals the illegal arms trafficking and trade that is going on within the country unabatedly



Around sunset on March 20, the company commander Major MM Shafiqur Rahman rushes out of the Tikatuli office of the Rapid Action Battalion 3 (RAB 3) with his team, in civil clothes. Their excitement was propagated by the fact that the illegal arms trading group, whose activities they have been investigating for over a month and were trying to contact to buy fire arms while posing as a group of professional killers themselves, had finally decided to sell weapons to them.

�It was quite tedious as the traders were rapidly changing locations and giving us new ones from a number of different mobiles,� says Shafiqur to Xtra later. �Still we did not give up and held onto every possible lead,� he adds.

After half an hour on that day, Shafiqur receives a call on his phone that asks him to reach a particular Char from the Mawa ferry station by boat. �But upon reaching the Char, we were asked to go to another Char that was a few miles away from there,� he says.

After jumping three Chars in such a manner, the traders finally decide to trade on the fourth Char. �I asked my men to spread out discreetly on the Char while two members of the team accompanied me to the rendezvous point,� remembers Shafiqur.