Mugging is rampant also on routes to and from the markets. Different city hospitals including Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) have reported an alarming rise in the number of people hospitalised after being rendered unconscious and mugged.

The inter-district bus terminals, launch ghats, rail stations and wholesale markets are the places where the muggers' gangs are most organised.

SM Mizanur Rahman, commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star yesterday that police so far have arrested six people in connection with muggings.

Plain-clothes police personnel have been deployed at different cattle markets in the city to check muggings ahead of Eid, he added.

Muggers normally use the drugs normally in two ways --by mixing with foods and by making the subjects smell the substance, sources said.

DMCH sources said about 65 people in an unconscious state were admitted in the last four days until yesterday afternoon. Of them, 35 were hospitalised since early Tuesday.

They later found out that they had lost everything they were carrying with them.

"We help the victims to regain consciousness usually within 12 to 24 hours but we can't find out what chemicals were used as we don't have adequate equipment to identify the substances," a medical officer of DMCH said, seeking not to be named.

Mohammad Habibur Rahman Khan Habi, 54, and his son Shamsul Khan, 24, of Sirajganj, had brought 16 head of cattle and earned Tk 60,000 selling four of them. But they fell prey to muggers in the early morning on Tuesday immediately after chewing betel leaves and drinking tea at the Gabtali cattle market.

"I found myself lying on the floor at Dhaka Medical College Hospital when I got back my senses. But I couldn't figure out how I landed here," Habi told The Daily Star adding, "And after a while it all became clear that I'd been mugged and lost whatever I had with me."

Four cattle traders-- Mojibur, 40, Jubaraj, 55, Abu Mian, 45, and Shaheb Mian, 35, all hailing from Meghna Ghat under Comilla district, had lost around Tk 60,000 to muggers at Gabtali cattle market.

"We came to Gabtali to buy cattle and take them with us to sell at Meghna Ghat. But we have no idea about how we got caught in the muggers' trap," said Shaheb Mian, who was rushed to a hospital by police.

Jafar, Assistant Sub Inspector of Tejgaon Police Station, said that they found the four lying unconscious in a BRTC double-decker bus at Farm Gate yesterday evening.