One held over abduction of small trader
Police yesterday arrested an alleged source of a law enforcement agency over the abduction of small trader Mohan Miah from the capital's Mirpur in June.
The arrest came hours after Mohan's father Jamsher Ali filed a fraudulence case with Mirpur Police Station against the alleged source, Babu, 40, who runs a small garment shop in Mirpur-2.
Babu took Tk 2 lakh from Jamsher on July 12, saying he knew the whereabouts of Mohan and would help Jamsher have his son released. But instead of helping Mohan's family, Babu kept wasting time, according to the case statement.
On August 27, Jamsher asked Babu to return the money, but he declined, it mentioned.
Police produced Babu before a Dhaka court yesterday but didn't seek his remand. The court sent him to jail.
Asked, Dadon Fakir, officer-in-charge of Mirpur Police Station, said they didn't feel it necessary to seek Babu's remand.
On Thursday, Jamsher had filed an abduction case with Mirpur Police Station against seven to eight unidentified persons, who picked up Mohan “impersonating as people from the administration”.
Earlier, two general diaries were filed over the abduction of 38-year-old Mohan -- one by his mother Nasima Begum on June 11 and the other by his wife Shahnaz Begum on June 21.
In the statement of the abduction case, Jamsher said seven to eight unidentified men came by a microbus and two motorbikes, and picked up Mohan from in front of his tea-stall in Mirpur Section-2 at about 9:40pm on June 10.
“When I asked about their identities, they told me that they were people from the administration,” Jamsher mentioned in the case statement.
Jamsher told this newspaper on Wednesday that he had asked the men why they were picking up his son. “They replied that there was a complaint against Mohan.”
Some moments of the incident were captured by two CCTV cameras installed nearby. In the video clip, some people were seen near a white microbus and two motorbikes. Jamsher was seen talking with them.
Jamsher said that around a week after Mohan's abduction, a man named Hafizur Rahman, claiming to be a Rab-4 official, came to their house and told them that Mohan was in custody of the elite force.
A Rab spokesperson, however, denied that Mohan was in Rab custody.
Jamsher claimed that Hafizur met him on three occasions.
On July 17, Hafizur handed over a letter to Jamsher, claiming that Mohan wrote it to his wife. The letter read that Mohan was in confinement and had been tortured.
The letter also mentioned that Hafizur be given Tk 500.
The family then gave Hafizur Tk 500, and a T-shirt and a towel for Mohan.
On the second occasion, Hafizur asked Jamsher to contact Babu, the alleged informant of a law enforcement agency. And at the last meet-up, Hafizur returned the T-shirt and the towel to the family, saying Mohan was no longer in custody of Rab-4, claimed Jamsher.
Jamsher further said Babu called him over his mobile phone in the first week of July and demanded Tk 3 lakh for his son's release from Rab-4 custody. And he finally agreed to pay Tk 2.5 lakh.
On July 12, Jamsher along with some locals went to Babu's shop in Mirpur-2 and gave him Tk 2 lakh.
At a press conference on August 28, Jamsher provided journalists with what he said was the call history of Hafizur's mobile phone. He claimed to have collected it from the phone carrier.
The call history printed on papers showed that Hafizur and Jamsher were in contact. Jamsher also showed journalists what he said was the registration form of Hafizur's SIM (subscriber identity module) card. A picture of a man in Rab uniform was seen in the filled out form.
The Daily Star could not independently verify the call history and the details of the registration form.
Contacted on Wednesday, Rab-4 Commanding Officer Chowdhury Manjurul Kabir didn't say whether Hafizur was an official of the Rab unit.
He, however, said they would investigate the matter.
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