‘Targeting low-income traders looking for ride at night’: detectives arrest 6 men

Vegetable traders -- Apan Mia and Nazrul Islam -- were waiting near Dhaka airport area on the night of December 28, 2020 for a vehicle to go to Karwan Bazar when a pick-up van stopped in front of them. They boarded the vehicle.

But as the van started moving, those who took in Apan and Nazrul mugged the duo and threw them off the running van, according to police.

Apan died on the road, while Nazrul luckily survived with major injuries.

The horrifying incident of the duo being thrown off the vehicle was captured by a CCTV camera installed near Kawla area and detectives arrested six men during raids in Narayanganj's Rupganj area last night, said AKM Hafiz Akhter, additional commissioner (detectives) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

They arrestees are: Sajal, Musa, Bachchu, Sajib, Munna and Siddque.

At a press conference at DMP media centre today, the DB official said the arrestees are members of an organised group of robbers, who set out in the middle of the night with a pick-up van to rob people.

Whenever anyone boarded the vehicle, the robbers mugged cash, other valuables from the victims and threw them off the running van, police said.

Their targets are usually low-income traders who head towards wholesale kitchen markets in Dhaka late at night, the DB official added.

The arrestees, during primary interrogation, admitted that they robbed people on the road -- Abdullahpur to Karwan Bazar, Rampura to Jatrabari, and Bhulta Gausia area.

According to detectives, the gang had been robbing people this way more than once a week.

Two to three persons used to sit in the front while the rest used to pose as passengers in the rear, police said quoting the arrestees.