Bulu, wife picked up for quizzing

The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) yesterday hauled in industrialist and private TV director MNH Bulu and his wife Pushpita Noor for questioning in connection with Yaba trading and later released them.
Pushpita is younger sister of Nikita who has been much talked about lately for being the subject of an intense police hunt as a suspected member of the city's Yaba cartel.
Rab officials said they picked up the two in an overnight raid on the Gulshan residence of Bulu, director of Boishakhi Television.
A team of the elite crime busters entered the house at around 11:00pm Wednesday. They searched every nook and cranny for about seven and a half hours but found nothing.
A Rab official said they released the husband and wife at around 8:00 last night after they came clean in the questioning.
Earlier, when Pushpita was brought face-to-face with Amin Huda, the latter said he did not know her.
One of the top drug barons, Huda was arrested in a Rab swoop on his Gulshan office on October 24 with 1.3 lakh Yaba tablets, huge chemicals and a machine used to make the pills.
During a press briefing yesterday afternoon, the Rab officials showed the marriage certificate of Bulu and Pushpita but they did not produce the two before the media.
Meanwhile, a Dhaka court yesterday placed Amin Huda and his associate Ahsanul Haque Hasan each on a three-day remand.
They were produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, Dhaka on completion of a four-day remand.
Investigation officer of the case filed in connection with the huge haul petitioned the court to grant at least seven days' remand for each of the two. He said Huda and Ahsan have already given some vital information and the law enforcers need to take them along in drives to net the other members of the Yaba cartel.
Meanwhile, the law enforcers have been continuing their efforts to hunt down Nikita alias Zannatul Ferdous alias Ena and Mahbubur Rahman Joynal, managing director of Hotel Purbani International.
Speaking at a press briefing yesterday afternoon, Wing Commander Sultan Mohammad Noorani said they would check the computers at Joynal's house for information about him, Nikita and their involvement in the drug trade.
He said they are closing in on a very important figure in the city's drug ring. He declined to disclose the name but said they believe the capture might lead to a whole picture of Yaba trading.
Rab officials said they are also searching for three people who studied with Nikita at a design school in the city.
“We are now convinced that Nikita is a Yaba dealer. But we are yet to be sure if Pushpita has any role in her drug dealing,” Noorani said.
Meanwhile, Rab officials could not yet come up with an estimated value of the wealth seized from Joynal's Dhanmondi residence three days ago.
They said they had called in experts, but they too could not estimate the prices of diamonds, jewellery and other precious stones since many of those are not that familiar in the country.
The seized ornaments include 36 items of diamond, 21 pieces of silver with precious stones attached, 67 pieces of gold ornaments, and 15 imitation gold and diamond fitted wristwatches. Each of the watches is estimated to be around Tk 5 lakh.
Rab said Joynal did not declare the seized items in his income tax returns submitted last year.
“We are suspecting that he had smuggled in those from different countries,” Noorani said adding that most of the times Joynal would have escorts on foreign trips and maybe he had used them to bring in the ornaments.