All 23 policemen of the Aminbazar camp under Savar police station have been closed after allegations were raised that they were extorting traders at Aminbazar and were involved in various other questionable activities.
A committee has been formed with Dhaka Additional Superintendent of Police Faruk Hossain at the head, to probe the allegations. Although concerned, senior police officials are still playing mysterious roles to save those policemen.
Dhaka Superintendent of Police Habibur Rahman confirmed that all 23 men of the Aminbazar police camp were closed following protests by traders at Aminbazar on Monday. However, Mostofa Kamal, officer-in-charge of Savar police station said no one had been closed, rather the men were transferred as part of a regular process. SP Habibur Rahman said the policemen were not involved in any kind of extortion.
He added that since an allegation had been raised, police had formed a committee to probe the matter.
According to sources, Sub Inspector Yunus Ali, Assistant Sub Inspectors Md Faruk, Lutfor Rahman and Habibullah, Constables Al Amin, Md Humayun, Abdul Alim, Moinul Hossain and Ruhul Amin were among those closed.
On Monday, traders at the capital’s Aminbazar staged angry demonstrations setting up blockades on Dhaka-Aricha Highway protesting their continuous and rampant extortion by the policemen at the Aminbazar camp.
According to the traders, some policemen, including ASI Lutfor Rahman, had been taking meat, fish and other items from the traders without paying for them, for quite some time.
When some traders protested the blatant extortion on Monday, the policemen took a few traders to the police camp and threatened that they would be falsely implicated in police cases.