Recently the capital has seen an alarming increase in the activities of such aggyan parties.

Physicians said victims who are suffering from liver and kidney ailments might get their kidneys and livers damaged if they are administered with high doses of sedatives.

The gangs and their activities spread rapidly in the capital and elsewhere in the last few years, but the law enforcers woke up to the reality of the scourge of this specific crime, only recently. About 200 victims of such criminal gangs were treated in Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) every month over the last four months, and during the same period at least four victims died.

Staff of the emergency department of DMCH said only 5 to 10 such victims a month used to get admitted to the hospital five years ago.

"If strong narcotics are used on an individual, that person might get killed or his or her memory might get damaged," Prof Dr AH Mohammad Firoz, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, told The Daily Star. He said large doses of sedatives or narcotics might even cause permanent mental disorder in a victim.

He said people of over 40 and below 15 years of age are at high risk of brain damage if drugged with large doses of strong sedatives.

Dr AKM Azad Hossain, registrar of the DMCH medicine ward, said aggyan party members use large doses of different types of sedatives to make their victims unconscious as quickly as possible.

A victim with a longstanding illness might even die if the dose of sedative is large and if the victim does not get proper medical attention immediately after the attack.

"If a victim has ongoing kidney or liver complications those might get severely aggravated if a large dose of sedative is administered on the person. It might also cause blood pressure to rise," Azad Hossain, who has a long track record of treating such patients, told The Daily Star. If elderly people become victims of such gangs, they also might die from such sedation, he added.

Over dose of such drugs sometimes might damage brain tissues or cells paralysing that particular part of the brain.

HOW AND WHERE THE GANGS OPERATE
The gangs are mainly active in crowded places like bus terminals, railway stations, and launch terminals. They first target a person and then somehow feed the target the sedative mixed with water, biscuits or other foods including coconut water.

After their targets become unconscious they make away with the victims' belongings.

Passengers, taxi-cab and CNG auto-rickshaw drivers, and rickshaw-pullers are usually the prime targets of the gangs.

Nowadays, Zia International Airport (ZIA) has also become a hotspot for the aggyan parties. People of the working class, particularly the ones returning home from abroad, often become the victims of the gangs.

The sudden rise of such crimes prompted the police authorities to deploy a special team of the Detective Branch (DB) to fight the menace, which has been cracking down on the gangs since the first week of June.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Md Asaduzzaman, who is leading the team, said they arrested at least 50 members of such gangs in the last one month.

He said the gangs mix seven to eight Lorazepam, a very strong sedative tablet imported from Pakistan, in tea, water or coconut water and serve it to their targets.

THE PIONEER IN THE TRADE
DB claims to have arrested the pioneer of 'aggyan party' recently. The man named Pundit ostensibly narrated to the law enforcers how he formed his gang 25 years ago and the way he used to run its activities.

Pundit told the police that he started in 1981-82 with six members. A few years into the inception he got arrested and his followers split into separate gangs. Since then the activities and number of the gangs have been spreading. Now there are such gangs even outside the capital.

Police often find it difficult to catch the members of such gangs with evidence as powdered sedatives, which are their tools of the trade, can be hidden or thrown away quite easily.

Cases filed in connection with robbing people after sedating them with drugs or poison or other intoxicating chemicals, could not be proved in courts due to negligence of police and lack of witnesses and evidence, commented a lawyer of the Judge Court in Dhaka.

He also said now anyone found guilty of committing such a crime will have to serve 10 years in jail. "The punishment is not enough as a victim might even die or be disabled permanently from such intoxication. So the punishment in such cases should be more rigorous," the lawyer added.

THE ORDEALS
Most of the victims of such attacks undergo serious ordeals as in most cases they are attacked when they are alone.

When a victim is admitted to DMCH, where the most of such victims in the city are usually admitted, he or she quite often does not get proper treatment as none of their relatives could accompany them there to buy medicines or to take care of them. They are usually kept abandoned on the veranda of DMCH. The process of stomach wash administered on the victims by doctors, is also very discomforting and often painful.