The Crime Desk: Tk 21 lakh 17 thousand 200 looted from the office of Abul Khair Tobacco Company in Lama, Bandarban, has been recovered. Until Saturday, the police dug up the soil and recovered this money from two places in the Lama Municipality area in multiple operations. Meanwhile, 8 people involved in the robbery at that office were arrested, but the police could not catch the mastermind, Karim.
Earlier, in the early hours of May 9, a group of 15 to 20 armed robbers raided the company’s tobacco purchasing office in the Linejhiri area of Lama Upazila. At that time, they took the office employees hostage and looted Tk 1 crore 72 lakh 75 thousand 638. In this incident, the police, investigating the case filed at Lama Police Station on May 10, arrested 8 people, including 3 women, from Lama, Bandarban, and the Chakaria area of neighboring Cox’s Bazar.
The arrested are Maruful, alias Arif, of the Purba Bheula area of Chakaria upazila; Naimul Islam, alias Sagar, of the Chakaria Lakshyachar area of the same district; Abdur Rahim of ward number 6 area of Lama municipality; Sujan of the Lama municipality area; Anwara Begum of the former Bilchhari area of Lama municipality; Karim’s wife and sister; and another male accused. According to the information of the arrested, that amount of money was recovered from under the ground.
Lama police station OC Tofazzal Hossain said that after the arrest of Karim’s wife on Saturday, according to the information given by her during interrogation, 18 lakh taka was recovered after digging up the soil in two places. Earlier, the police recovered 50 thousand 200 taka from Abdur Rahim and, according to the information given by her, 2 lakh 67 thousand taka from Waser Ali’s hilly land on Friday night.
Enamul Haque, the investigating officer of the case, said that the arrested Karim is an active member of the inter-district robbery gang in South Chittagong and is suspected to be the main mastermind of the Lama incident. The operation is ongoing to arrest the rest of those involved in the incident and recover all the looted money.
Police officials said that the robbery was led by Karim and Arif of Sylheti Para in Lama town.
