Man arrested with Tk 27 lakh a 'professional thief': CMP

Chattogram police arrested three -- Monir Hossain (40), his wife Khuku Moni (28) and a CNG driver Mahfuz -- on May 21 for stealing Tk 27 lakh.

At a press conference yesterday, Deputy Commissioner (South) of CMP, Bijoy Basak, said, "Monir is a professional and notorious thief. He used to move around in a rented CNG-run auto rickshaw and targeted offices and businesses at night."

Monir Hossain and his elder brother Md Amir Hossain were both professional thieves and earned a reputation for being able to break any iron grille within two to three minutes, said police, our staff correspondent reports. Amir died from cardiac arrest two months ago, after coming out from jail.

To arrange his brother's ziafat (a social event with food in memory of the deceased), Monir on May 18 night stole Tk 27 lakh cash from a business in Chattogram city's Jubilee Road area and later spent Tk 10,000 on the programme, police said.

According to police, Monir entered Jubilee Road's Mutual Trust Bank branch but failed to open the vault. Later, he climbed to the third floor of the building and entered Bangladesh Suppliers' office, an engineering tools and machineries wholesaler office, and took money from their vault.

"On May 17 night, Monir first climbed up to the second floor of the building and broke the iron grille of Mutual Trust Bank and entered there. He first put water on the CCTV DVR of the bank to damage recording and later tried to open the bank vault but failed," said DC Bijoy Basak.

The police official said, "Later, he climbed to the third floor and entered Bangladesh Suppliers' office and mistakenly put water on the dish-TV box thinking it was the DVR. As the room was locked, he cut another grille of a window from outside and entered there, and took away tk 27 lakh cash from the vault."

Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Kotwali police station Nezam Uddin told The Daily Star, "Monir took Tk 27,15,000 in total but he spent Tk 10,000 for his brother's ziafat on May 20 night."

"Monir told police that he committed over 300 burglaries in the last five years. He served two years in jail earlier," OC Nezam said.