Mugger who dragged woman along with her bag in Dhaka’s Siddheswari arrested after 3 months

Three months after a woman was dragged and thrown onto the street during a bag snatch-and-run incident in Dhaka's Siddheswari, the mugger involved has been arrested.

The suspect was apprehended from the Uttara West Police Station area along with the private car used in the offence on Thursday, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) said in a press release on Saturday.

According to police, the arrestee, 33-year-old Rabiul who gave a single name, has confessed to the crime in court.

On the early morning of Apr 26, a woman was robbed of her bag in Siddheswari by assailants in a private car. After footage of the incident spread on Facebook, the court, on its own initiative, accepted the case on Apr 29, three days after the incident.

The video showed a woman standing on the sidewalk with luggage and a vanity bag in her hand. A white private car slowly approached her, and a person seated in the front passenger seat stretched out his hand to grab her handbag.

As the bag was looped around her wrist, she was dragged for 15 to 20 feet before falling onto the street. She later got up and returned to her luggage. Locals rushed over as she showed them signs of her injuries.

The PBI’s special superintendent of police in the Dhaka Metropolitan area was given time until Jul 20 to submit the investigation report.

After apprehending the suspect, police said the woman had left home around 5:30am and was waiting for a bus outside Greenland Tower in Siddheswari to travel to Gazipur.

Around 5:45am, she came under attack. The muggers later fled toward Moghbazar with the bag.

According to the PBI, Rabiul was identified and arrested through analysis of the video footage, digital forensics, and review of similar incidents in Dhaka.

Efforts are ongoing to arrest his accomplices, it added.

The press release added that, in addition to the Siddheswari incident, four other similar crimes occurred on the same day.

Rabiul and two other fugitives used to roam Dhaka’s streets at dawn, committing muggings. The trio carried out at least 30 such thefts. After each incident, they would split the money and mobile phones found in the bags.