Mizan denies identity but it doesn’t work

In an attempt to avoid arrest, Awami League leader and ward councillor Habibur Rahman Mizan tried to deceive Rab members during a drive in Sreemangal on Friday morning.

When he was confronted by Rab officials at his acquaintance’s house, he denied his identity. 

As the officials enquired him, his response was “My name is not Mizan, neither am I a ward councillor,” said Executive Magistrate Sarwoer Alam, who led the drive.  

Mizan also denied being from Dhaka’s Mohammadpur area and said he was from Jhalakathi district, Sarwoer added. 

He said Mizan continued confusing Rab

officials with false information during the drive, which lasted over an hour. 

However, when Rab found an unlicensed firearm, four bullets and Tk 2 lakh among his possessions, he became nervous and subsequently admitted his identity, he added.  

The AL leader and councillor of ward-32 of Dhaka North City Corporation was then arrested at the house that belong to his friend. 

Sarwoer also said Rab conducted a drive on Mizan’s Mohammadpur residence on Wednesday night to nab him. 

They used cell phone tracking to find him. After entering his house, Rab, however, found out from his family members that he left the house the day before.

Rab recovered Tk 1 crore in fixed deposit receipts and Tk 6.77 crore in cheques from Mizan’s Mohammadpur flat, hours after he was arrested in Sreemangal. 

Mizan had gone to Sreemangal as he was trying to flee the country through Sylhet after sensing that law enforcers would be coming after him, Sarwoer said. 

Yesterday, two cases were filed against Mizan -- one with Mohammadpur police on charge of money laundering and the other with Sreemangal police station for the possession of illegal firearms, Sarwoer told this paper. 

GG Biswas, officer-in-charge of Mohammadpur police station said the case that Rab had filed against Mizan over money laundering with the station was handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). 

Meanwhile, the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Nivana Khair Jessi placed Mizan on a seven-day remand in connection with the money laundering case after CID Inspector Giasuddin produced him before court seeking a 10-day remand, court sources said. 

Sarwoer said Mizan had several allegations against him, including of running an illegal drug business at Mohammadpur’s Geneva camp, extortion, patronising mugging gangs in Mohammadpur and Dhanmondi areas, and land grabbing. 

During primary interrogation, Mizan could not give answers regarding how he amassed his wealth, said Sarwoer. 

Officers were checking whether he had any involvement in the Freedom Party and if he was an accused in a case filed over an attempted murder of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, he said. 

Locals in Mohammadpur and Rab sources said Mizan worked as a hotel boy in Mohammadpur area after 1975.  

His full name was Mizanur Rahman which he later changed to Habibur Rahman, locals said. 

He gradually involved himself in extortion and mugging, they added. 

He was a member of the Freedom Party until 1990. Later, he joined the AL and became the general secretary of its Mohammadpur thana unit, said locals. 

At present, he does not hold any organisational post of AL.