Babar asked police not to nab NSI men

Former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar directed Sabbir Ali, former police commissioner of Chittagong, not to arrest NSI officials engaged to help offload arms and ammunition at CUFL jetty on April 02, 2004.
Babar also asked the then police officials not to do anything or disclose the matter to anyone regarding the involvement of the NSI officials in a meeting held at Chittagong Police Lines on that day.
Sabbir Ali said this before a Chittagong court yesterday.
The then home secretary Omar Faruk, also chief of the probe committee to investigate the seizure of arms, excluded the names of three NSI officials including the then DG Brig Gen Abdur Rahim from the probe report, a source at the court said quoting Sabbir's statement.
Earlier, three other members of the probe committee including its member secretary Shamsul Islam, also former DIG of Special Branch; former DIG (CID) Farrukh Ahmed and former NSI director Brig Gen Enamur Rahman gave judicial statements implicating Babar and Omar Faruk in the arms haul case.
Chittagong Metropolitan Judicial Magistrate Mahbubur Rahman recorded the 14-page statement of Sabbir under section 164 in the afternoon.
The then DC (port) Abdullahel Baki informed him about the incident at about 12:45am on that day and said that two persons, one identifying himself as NSI deputy director Major Liakat, were asking not to seize the arms and ammunition and also helped offloading those, Sabbir said in his statement.
Liakat said the consignment is being offloaded on orders of the higher authorities. He also told Sabbir to talk with the then NSI DG Abdur Rahim.
“As the IGP and additional IGP were not available at that moment, I talked with the state minister Lutfozzaman Babar. Babar told me that he was informed about the incident by DIG (SB) Shamsul Islam. He also [Babar] asked me not to arrest the NSI-men over the phone,” Sabbir's statement said.
“On the following day, at a meeting held at my police lines office, we asked Babar about the involvement of NSI officials. But, he [Babar] asked us not to disclose the matter to anyone,” he said.
“I told the committee chief Omar Faruk that three NSI officials including DG Abdur Rahim were involved in the incident, but he [Omar Faruk] avoided the matter.”
“While monitoring the case later, I came to know about the involvement of NSI field officer Akbar Hossain, who hired the trucks to carry the weapons,” Sabbir added in the statement.
Earlier, Enamur Rahman in his statement claimed that they suggested mentioning the involvement of the NSI officials with the import and offload of the arms in the report, but the committee chief didn't do that.
Farrukh Ahmed in his statement implicated Babar along with Faruk for diverting the incident and said everything was done on orders of Babar.
Shamsul Islam said despite his being a member secretary of the committee, the probe report was made without informing him. After making the report, he was summoned at the office of the then home secretary and was forced to sign it.
All these three members of the committee alleged that the matter of involvement of the NSI officials with the incident was discussed in every meeting of the committee. But finally their involvement was not mentioned in the report. Even the copy of the report was not given to anyone of the committee.