The Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) yesterday seized the Mercedes sedan used by Ahmed Shafat, the prime accused in the Banani Rape case.

Investigators suspect Shafat and another accused Shadman Sakif escaped to Sylhet from Dhaka with the car after the case was filed.

Officials found the car, owned by Shafat's father Dildar Ahmed, hidden in a house in Sylhet's Zindabazar area, said CIID Director General Moniul Khan.

He also suspected that taxes on the car were dodged.

The top CIID official told reporters at his office that Raintree Dhaka hotel authorities couldn't give satisfactory answers regarding their taxes and the alcohol found in a room. Cases would be filed in connection with the irregularities, he added. 

The narcotics control department confirmed the CIID that liquor bottles found at Raintree were "pure foreign alcohol", Moinul said.

“We learnt from the rape victims that drugs and alcohol were consumed in the hotel. The hotel doesn't even have licence to serve alcohol,” he said, adding that the hotel would be proven guilty in the case.

Invited to Shafat's birthday party on March 28, two university students went to the Raintree hotel around 9:00pm. After the party ended around midnight, Shafat and his friend Halim alias Nayem Ashraf raped them in two rooms, alleged one of the two girls who filed the case with Banani Police Station over a month after the incident.

Shadman Sakif and Shafat's driver Billal Hossain and bodyguard Rahmat Ali, were also accused in the case.  All the accused are arrested.

In another development, National Human Rights Commission yesterday asked the deputy commissioner of Gulshan Division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, officer-in-charge of Banani Police Station, managing director and general manager of Raintree hotel to appear at its office.

They were asked to appear there on May 25, said M Rabiul Islam, member secretary of the committee formed by the commission to investigate into the allegations of rapes.

RAINTREE OWNERS GRILLED

The hotel's Managing Director Shah Md Adnan Harun, along with his uncles Mujibul Hoque Kamal and Akbar Hossain Manju and a lawyer Jahangir Kabir, appeared in CIID's Kakrail office around 11:00am.

After questioning them, Moinul said it appeared that the hotel dodged VAT.  

About the wine bottles found in the hotel earlier by CIID, the owners said they recovered the bottles from a room rented by a foreigner, who was there on April 30.

The CIID DG added that he would also question General Manager Frank Henry and Food and Beverage Manager Imdadul Amin.

He added that the men failed to produce documents to prove that VAT was paid.

Adnan Harun, however, claimed they submitted the VAT documents and the CIID officials were satisfied adding that the wine bottles could have been sneaked in there taking advantage of some loopholes in the management.

APAN JEWELLERS' SOLD 'SMUGGLED GOLD'

Moniul also said they found evidence that the gold and diamonds sold by Apan Jewellers were smuggled into the country.

CIID found 13.5 mounds of gold and 427grammes of diamonds in five outlets of Apan Jewellers without any valid documents.