The Decline of Gangsters in Urban Bangladesh 17 the late 1990s and early 2000s: ‘there used to be lots of fighting between the jupri and other groups. We used to be on two sides running against each and fighting. The trucks used to be left at the side not even unloaded! We would fight, then sleep, then the whistle would come and we would run and fight again’.35 This suggests that a further source of violence in this period was factional conflict within gangs. As suggested at the beginning of this section, today Karwan Bazar, and Dhaka in general, are comparatively stable, with far fewer incidents of large-scale violence. Continuing the story of picchi Hannan enables us to understand why this is the case. Despite his rise to power, wealth and fame, a few years later Hannan found himself in the custody of Bangladesh’s newly formed elite force, the Rapid Action Batallion (RAB). Understanding the fall of Hannan illuminates the changing face of political order in urban Bangladesh. RAB and the Party Politicization of Violence ‘The days of there being these big brothers are finished, many have died, many are drug addicts, many are beggars and many just steal from beggars’. (Naseema, a low-level Hawkers League leader)36 In 2001 the BNP returned to power with a public commitment to bring an end to the high levels of violence and crime seen in Dhaka and throughout Bangladesh. The powerful mastan or shontrashi were identified as central to this endeavour, and the government offered rewards for information leading to the capture of ‘23 top terror’, including picchi Hannan. In late 2002 this mission acquired a name, ‘Operation Clean Heart’, and was driven by the mass deployment of the military. As a result, many top mastan fled to India, often sheltering in Kolkata, as was the case for Hannan who even earned a reference in the BBC News (2002). Despite around 10,000 people being ar- rested, crime and violence continued, mastan resumed their business (HRW, 2006), and there was the perception that existing state forces were inadequate to deal with the power of mastan. However, the operation was given a major boost with the formation of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2004. RAB is an elite force formed from the police and army, designed to fight terrorism and high-level crime. Often called a ‘death squad’ in international media (The Guardian, 2010a), they initially received training from the British (The Guardian, 2010b), and became infamous internationally for extrajudicial killings. When people at Karwan Bazar and Dhaka in general explain that ‘the mastan have been killed’, it is usually followed by ‘RAB killed them’. Having spent years in hiding, picchi Hannan was almost apprehended on 25 June 2004. Bangladesh’s The Daily Star reported that RAB had attempted 35. Interview, Mohammed, a labourer, Dhaka, November 2014. 36. Interview, Naseema, Dhaka, February 2015.