Narinjara News


Firearms Possibly Smuggled through Akyab, Arakan State

Dhaka, April 11: A haul amount of firearms that were seized in Chittagong, Bangladesh on April 2^nd could have come via Akyab, Arakan State in Burma, through the sea smuggling route. This is how the Bangladesh intelligence organization believes how the latest haul of a large quantity of arms came into Bangladesh, according to The Daily Star (08-04-04).

Bangladesh CID was reported to have told the newspaper that the arms came from China, using the land route through Burma to the western-most sea port of Burma, from there the arms were taken across the Bay of Bengal on the fishing boats FV Khazar Dan and FV Amanat into Chittagong.

But, none could say for sure if the haul arms were offloaded at the outer anchorage of Akyab port or Chittagong port. 

After the seizures, the Bangladesh police went on a hunt to arrest those involved in it. Three people were arrested when they tried to escape across the border town Bandraban on the 6^th of April. They were the relatives of the owners of the trucks that were used for the arms transport.

This was the largest arms seizure since Bangladesh’s Independence in 1971. The Bangladeshi newspapers were writing about this national security scare after the seizure.

The haul consisted of SMGs Sub Machine Guns (1,290), Tommy Guns (100), Semi Automatic Spot rifles (400), Rocket launchers- 40mm (150), Grenade launchers (2, 000), Rockets (840), hand grenades (25,021), magazines of SMG& others (6,392), and Bullets-18,40,000 rounds. 690 AK-47 assault rifles were also included in the list.

These arms are unlikely to be used in Bangladesh, the smugglers maybe using Bangladesh as the route for the armed groups in neighbouring countries.  They are more likely for the armed groups in India, according to the security analysts. #