Time Digital Report: At list 23,968 people, including at least several hundred leaders and activists of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, were arrested during the nationwide special drive from December 1 to 15, police said.
The media and public relations wing at Police Headquarters told on Monday that a total of 15,968 individuals were arrested on warrants or cases filed previously, while 8,000 people were held in 5,132 cases filed during the drive.
A PHQ official said that 33,429 operations were conducted during the 15-day drive, during which 24 firearms, including three pistols, were seized.
The police during this period also seized 2,86,592 Yaba pills, 8.6 kilograms of heroin, 5,415 bottles of Phensedyl, and 7,580 kilograms of cannabis.
On November 29, the PHQ instructed all its units to carry out countrywide raids between December 1 and 15 to ensure a smooth celebration of Victory Day, Christmas Day, and Thirty-First Night.
The main opposition BNP alleged that the special drive was meant to arrest their leaders and activists to foil their mass rally in Dhaka on December 10.
Until December 6, the BNP said in a press statement that 1,400 leaders and activists, and even their drivers or assistants, were arrested, and properties were vandalised in Dhaka and other districts between midnight on November 30 and Tuesday noon ahead of the rally.
DMP officials said that they arrested 600 people related to the BNP and its affiliated bodies in the capital between December 7 and December 9.
‘We made arrests based on specific information or in connection with criminal cases,’ Dhaka range deputy inspector general Syed Nurul Islam told.
The PHQ spokesman, assistant inspector general for media and public relations Monzur Rahman, said they did not have a specific number of how many opposition activists were arrested.
The law enforcers, however, could not arrest two convicted extremists Moinul Hasan Shamim and Abu Siddiq Sohel, who were snatched from their custody on November 20 in Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court area.
At least 79,054 inmates were in jails across the country as of December 9.
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