Police question Control Risks report that says Bangladesh 7th among top 10 countries where kidnapping is frequent

Police have questioned a report of an international risk-consulting firm that put Bangladesh 7th among the top 10 countries where kidnappings are most frequent.

After a flurry of news reports on the issue, Bangladesh Police headquarters in a statement released on Monday rejected the report by UK-based Control Risks.
 
Control Risks, a global consultancy that specialises in political, integrity and security risk, recently published the report based on last year’s data.
 
The police statement said 84 percent of the incidents of kidnappings in Bangladesh were related to love affairs and so the incidents are different in nature from those of the other countries.
 
A high-ranking police official told bdnews24.com in Bangladesh, the eighth most populated country in the world, kidnapping cases were recurrent due to rise in eloping.
 
“Generally, the girl’s family sues the boy immediately. Most of these cases are also settled in a very short time,” the official said.
 
The statement said Control Risks had not sought any information from Bangladesh Police while preparing the report.
 
“It is not clear what statistics and data Control Risks has used to put Bangladesh among the top 10 countries where kidnappings are frequent.”

India, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been ranked second, third and eighth, respectively, in the Control Risks report.

Mexico tops the list while war-torn Iraq is in fourth spot and Libya sixth. Sudan is ranked ninth while Lebanon completes the ranking at 10th.

The report said criminals carry out 80 percent of the kidnappings for ransom while radical militants are behind the rest.

Control Risks in the report said Bangladesh ‘entered the top ten for the first time in 2014 after the high-profile kidnap and murder of seven men’, referring to the sensational seven-murder in Narayanganj in April last year.

Bangladesh Police, however, claim the report’s data does not match with those of several other international organisations published earlier this year.

They cited the reports of London-based organisations Help Build Peace and Red 24, which did not include Bangladesh as a country where abductions are frequent.

Bangladesh is not in the report titled 'Kidnapping Threat Worldwide' released by Australian government in March.

However, statistical website NationMaster ranked Bangladesh 33rd in its report, said the media statement from Police Headquarters.