SP did more than grabbing lands
Police Superintendent Mizanur Rahman who was closed to the headquarters last month on charges of attempting to grab other peoples' farmlands in Gopalganj, had some other alleged nefarious operations as well, according to the Police Headquarters sources.
A Chittagong based fertiliser trader on the 1st of this month filed a written allegation with the inspector general of police (IGP) against Mizan, saying the SP had forced him to pay Tk 11.5 lakh, with threats of putting him in 'crossfire', the sources said.
Mizan's wife owns a medium sized fertiliser production company Mollah NPKS Ltd, but Mizan himself mainly runs the business, flouting government service rules, the sources added.
The company has two factories, one at Rayerbagh and the other at Fatullah, both on the outskirts of the capital.
The complainant, Omar Faruq, said in the written allegation that he used to be a distributor of Mollah NPKS fertiliser in exchange for a 20 percent commission per sack.
In 2008 he received 400 sacks of fertiliser from Mollah NPKS, but found that the fertiliser was of very bad quality, and since then he was asking Mizan to take back the supplied bad fertiliser, Faruq alleged in the complaint.
But instead of taking back the supplied fertiliser, Mizan started to threaten Faruq with 'crossfire' if the latter did not pay a demanded sum of Tk 25 lakh for the goods, the written complaint says, adding that Mizan also claimed he was a relative of the prime minister, he was very powerful, and could do anything he wanted.
Finally fearing for his own life, Faruq deposited three cheques of a total Tk 11.5 lakh to Mizan's bank account, until which the SP had been harassing Faruq using police forces of different districts, according to the complaint. Mizan even had Faruq tortured in Bagerhat Sadar police station, alleges the written complaint.
"When Mizanur Rahman was the SP of Faridpur in April last year, his factory manager filed a false case against me with Jatrabari police in Dhaka accusing me of cheating. Jatrabari police came to Chittagong, arrested me from my Double Mooring residence, and took me to Dhaka," Omar Faruq told The Daily Star yesterday adding, "When, he was the SP of Bagerhat, another case was filed against me by one of Mizan's junior police officers, with the Sadar police station, accusing me of fertiliser black marketing."
"After the Bagerhat case was filed, police again picked me up from my Chittagong residence and took me to Bagerhat. Mizan threatened me with crossfire, if I wouldn't pay him 25 lakh taka as the price for the fertiliser he had supplied me, although the actual price of the supplied goods was 2 lakh 80 thousand taka," Faruq said.
Faruq also said he waited so long to file the complaint in fear of Mizan's power, and found the courage to file it only after preliminary action had been taken against the alleged bad cop.
IGP Noor Mohammad confirmed that he received Faruq's complaint, adding that he received various other allegations against the SP as well.
"We already told the home ministry that he should be suspended after the Police Headquarters found proof of his various irregularities including abuse of power," the IGP told The Daily Star yesterday about the police department's position regarding Mizan.
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