Bangladesh is grappling with a sharp rise in illegal firearms-related violence, with at least 123 shooting incidents recorded across the country in the first seven months of 2025, resulting in more than 50 deaths, according to police records cited by The Dhaka Tribune. Compounding the crisis, 1,311 weapons looted from police stations and law-enforcement facilities during the August 2024 political upheaval remain unrecovered more than two years on.

Weapons on the Streets

The scale of the problem came into sharp focus on Tuesday when two youths openly brandished firearms during a clash between rival groups in the Sitakunda region of Chittagong district, coinciding with the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)'s 48th founding anniversary. Hours later, on the same day, police in Hathazari, Chittagong, unearthed an illegal arms manufacturing unit concealed inside a CNG autorickshaw repair workshop.

In a separate incident in Dhaka, three people were injured after gunmen opened fire during a clash in the Gandaria Swamibagh Munsirtek area — a dispute rooted in drug-trade control and the arrest of alleged dealers.

The 2024 Looted Weapons Crisis

At the heart of the firearms surge is the unresolved fallout from the August 2024 civil unrest, during which weapons were seized from multiple police facilities across the country. According to police data, the unrecovered haul includes 109 Chinese rifles and 30 submachine guns, along with approximately 257,125 rounds of ammunition. Law-enforcement sources, as reported by The Dhaka Tribune, indicate that organised criminal groups have absorbed both these looted weapons and additional modern illegal firearms into their arsenals.

Murder Figures Mount

Police Headquarters data reveals that 934 murder cases were registered between May and July 2025 alone — an average exceeding 300 cases a month, or more than 10 killings a day. Police sources further noted that several listed criminals who had secured bail have since resumed extortion, land-grabbing, and violent territorial expansion.

Expert Warning

Touhidul Haque, associate professor at Dhaka University's Institute of Social Welfare and Research, said the recent incidents reflect both the growing availability of illegal firearms and their increasingly brazen use. He pointed to public displays of weapons, arms recoveries in Chittagong, repeated killings, and the deaths of listed criminals as evidence of a widening illicit firearms network.

'At this moment, terrorist groups are keeping arms to carry out their misdeeds,' Haque told The Dhaka Tribune. He urged authorities to intensify surveillance along arms-smuggling corridors and accelerate recovery efforts for weapons looted in 2024.

What Comes Next

The continued circulation of unaccounted weapons outside state control is fuelling public anxiety across Bangladesh, with pressure mounting on law-enforcement agencies to demonstrate visible progress. Whether the authorities can close the net on the 1,311 missing weapons — and disrupt the criminal networks that now wield them — will be the defining test of public-safety governance in the months ahead.