Outlawed parties recruiting slum boys, street urchins

Operatives of the underground outfits are recruiting boys between 13 and 16 years from different slums and floating people. These boys are being trained in making bombs and targeting victims. They are also given money.

Cadres of the parties secretly visit families of victims of crossfire and mob beating to persuade teenagers to join them, the sources in Khulna Metropolitan Police (KMP) said. Boys from slums and street urchins are given priority for carrying small arms, hand bombs and grenades.

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Unemployed floating youths are easily tricked by outlaws and tasked with collecting ransom and toll on behalf of them.

With the little payments they get, these youths and teenagers also use drugs or commit sexual crimes, said a senior KMP official.

He said the new recruits are more dangerous, and sometimes more effective, than the old and experienced underground operatives.

Citing an example, he said 15 year-old Jasim and Khalil hurled a grenade at the official vehicle of the Khulna City Corporation Mayor on February 29 last year. They threw another grenade on a police sergeant in the city on March 5 last year.

Both the Mayor and the sergeant survived the attempts on their lives, as the grenades did not explode. But they threw the grenades very accurately, he said.

Outlaw Raja Chowdhury, 17, who was killed in 'crossfire' in September last year, had supplied the grenades to Jasim and Khalil, who also died in an 'encounter' with police on March 6.

Another teenager, Ujjal, 14, was injured in an explosion while making a bomb in Ice Ghat union in Rupsha upazila on January 23 last year.

The KMO official said both Janajuddha and M-L factions of outlawed Purba Banglar Communist party (PBCP) are recruiting boys to accomplish destructive missions at minimum risk.

Police picked up two boys in January this year with two bombs supplied to them to kill a physician in Shantidham under Kotwali Police Station.

KMP Detectives arrested two 12-year-old boys with two firearms in April from Farazipara under the same police station.

The new recruits are also involved in drug peddling, the KMP officer said.