Five held for trying to frame shop owner

Detectives yesterday arrested five people, including two impersonating journalists, in Nasirabad area of Chattogram for attempting to frame a shop owner by planting bullets and yaba pills in his shop early yesterday.

The arrestees are Iftekhar Karim Chowdhury, 48, Md Sohel, 26, Md Faisal, 20, Md Nazrul Islam, 42, and Md Jamal Hossain, 41, said police.

Among them, Nazrul introduced himself as the driver of Chittagong University (CU)'s Vice-Chancellor Prof Shireen Akhter but police said they were verifying the information.

However, despite repeated attempts, the VC could not be reached for comments over phone.

Two ID cards  of "Dainik Mukto Khabar" newspaper were also seized from Iftekhar and Nazrul.

Muhammad Ali Hossain, deputy commissioner of DB north division of CMP, in a press briefing, said, "The five had planted bullets and some yaba pills inside a shop named "Hair and Fair" in front of MES College to frame the owner.

"When police got the information on Saturday, the DB men raided the shop and recovered four bullets and 200 yaba pills under a couch in the shop," added the DC.

"During primary investigation, police became suspicious and started checking the CCTV footage of the shop and found that a young man placed the items under the couch while sitting on it," said the DB official.

"Scrutinising the footage, police held Faisal first and then, based on his confession,  four others were arrested, " he added.

Shah Md Abdur Rauf, additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of North Zone Shah, said, "The owner of the shop told police that he was in a business rivalry. Police will interrogate the arrestees in remand and look into it."