Despite years of crackdowns, Dhaka’s juvenile gangs continue to regroup, recruit and return to the streets, exposing what police and criminologists describe as a deeper failure of rehabilitation and enforcement rather than simply a law-and-order problem.
Police say teenage gang members are routinely arrested, sent to child development centres or released on bail, only to return to their neighbourhoods and resume criminal activities -- often under new gang names or new political patrons.
According to Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), 118 juvenile gangs are currently active across 50 police stations in the capital, with the highest concentration in Mirpur, Mohammadpur and Uttara.
Members are allegedly involved in robbery, extortion, drug trafficking, contract attacks, land grabbing and murder.
Police officials say the problem has now reached a point where raids alone are no longer enough.
“Arresting gang members will not solve the problem unless those financing them, supplying drugs, providing weapons and offering political shelter are also brought under the law,” a senior police official said.
DMP data show Mirpur Division has the highest number of active gangs, with 32 operating across seven police stations, including 14 in Pallabi alone.
Tejgaon Division follows with 26 gangs, 16 of them centred in Mohammadpur.
Smaller but active networks also operate across Ramna, Lalbagh, Wari, Motijheel, Gulshan and Uttara divisions.
Investigators say each gang typically consists of seven to 20 members, mostly aged between 14 and 20, although adults often supervise operations.
Many members carry sharp weapons and, in some cases, firearms, while drug abuse and trafficking have become common features of the networks.
Law enforcement officials also say the political landscape changed after the August 5, 2024 transition, but the gangs largely survived by changing patrons rather than disappearing.
Groups previously linked to one local political figure have reportedly aligned themselves with new power centres, while others have split into smaller factions competing for control of neighbourhoods and illegal businesses.
Teenagers are allegedly used to control markets, bus terminals, footpaths, parking lots, internet cable businesses, waste management, land grabbing and extortion, as well as to intimidate rivals and participate in violent confrontations.
Professor Md Rezaul Karim, chairman of the Department of Criminology at Dhaka University, said juvenile gang members are “made, not born.”
He said adolescents are gradually drawn into organised crime through drug distribution, extortion and local muscle work before graduating to more serious offences under the protection of influential criminal networks.
Associate Professor Dr Touhidul Haque of Dhaka University’s Institute of Social Welfare and Research warned that the problem has spread well beyond Dhaka.
He said the crisis cannot be addressed through police operations alone, calling for action against financiers, drug syndicates and political sponsors, alongside stronger roles for families, schools and local communities in preventing vulnerable teenagers from entering criminal networks.
Even police acknowledge the limitations of the current strategy.
DMP Additional Commissioner (Intelligence) Md Shafiqul Islam said many gang members are minors who are sent to child development centres but later return to crime, suggesting the effectiveness of the existing rehabilitation framework should be reviewed.
He also urged political parties to stop using minors in processions and violent demonstrations, warning that without tackling the networks that recruit and exploit teenagers, new gangs will continue to emerge even as old ones are dismantled.
