Sinha discovered Pradeep’s links to drug trade, was threatened by him: Rab

Former officer-in-charge of Teknaf Police Station Pradeep Kumar Das had met with murdered Maj (retd) Sinha Rashed Khan at the police station, and threatened him, revealed Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) at a press conference today.

"The meeting happened in mid-July. While shooting for his YouTube channel, Sinha had independently looked into the drug trade of the area and found its links with Pradeep. He was a friendly person and people opened up to him, telling him about how Pradeep oppressed them. Upon finding such allegations, he met with Pradeep at Teknaf Police Station," said Lt Col Ashiq Billah, director of Rab's legal and media wing, at a press conference held at the elite force's media centre today.

"Pradeep told him to leave the area and threatened to 'destroy' him if he didn't comply," said Billah.

A highly-placed source in Rab claimed to this correspondent that Sinha had found out about how Pradeep used several Rohingya refugees to deal in cross-border yaba trade, and said that this trade was worth Tk 50 lakh daily.

Pradip Kumar took over as officer-in-charge of Teknaf Model Police Station on October 19, 2018 and The Daily Star had previously found that as many as 65 Rohingyas were killed in "gunfights" in the area between August 2018 to 2020.

"Pradeep chose to intervene and kill him before he exposed any of this to the authorities," said Billah, addressing the press conference.

Billah said that they came to this conclusion based on the confessional statements given by 12 of the arrested, and upon analysing some digital content in possession of Sinha, his companion Shipra Debnath and Shahedul Sifat.

While talking to this correspondent he, however, also added that the electronic devices of the trio were in the possession of Teknaf Police Station for a considerable amount of time and that when they finally got hold of the devices, the memory cards were corrupted.