Thirty-one jailed

A mobile court sentenced a retired police constable to one month's imprisonment for cheating and harassing people on the BRTA office premises at Mirpur in the city yesterday, just three days after he came out of jail after serving 10 days on the same charges.
The retired constable, Kabir Hossain, 45, was arrested along with 30 others from the BRTA office area when the mobile court led by two executive magistrates Tofayel Islam and Mashiur Rahman in cooperation with the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) conducted a drive at 11:00am.
The other arrestees were sentenced to imprisonment for up to 15 days, but only Kabir was jailed for one month, as he committed the same crime soon after coming out of jail, BRTA and Rab sources said.
During preliminary interrogation, Kabir admitted that he was forced to retire from the police department due to his misdeeds and later he became a broker at the BRTA office, Rab officials said.
According to BRTA officials, the arrestees were engaged in cheating people who came to the BRTA office to obtain driving licences or register their vehicles.
The arrestees were also linked to different gangs providing fake driving licences to drivers and fake registrations to car lifters and they often extorted money from the drivers and vehicle owners.
Sources said over 100 brokers were arrested in the last two months from BRTA office areas.
"The special drives by the mobile courts will continue with a view to making the BRTA office area free from brokers," BRTA Director (enforcement) Tapan Kumer Sarker said. "Each of the arrestees were also fined up to 1,500."