Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP) Detective Branch (DB) arrested an arms trader named Hafizur Rahman from Dhaka’s Mirpur area on Tuesday.
Hafiz and his associates brought illegal arms into Bangladesh in a unique way, said the DMP commissioner in a press briefing at the DMP media centre on Tuesday.
He said: “Hafiz and his associates Habibur Rahman Bishwas and Zillur smuggled illegal weapons into Bangladesh through the Benapole border from India. Arms and ammunition would mainly come from Bihar.
During the first part of the deal, the illegal weapons and ammunition were kept at a secret location in a place nearby the Bangladesh-India border by Kolkata’s arms traders.”
After the finalization of the deal with Bangladeshi arms traders, the Indian smugglers would bring the illegal arms to Angrail village in West Bengal’s North 24 Pargana district, where the dealers would pass the weapons and ammunitions underwater in a river bordering the village of Putkhali in Bangladesh’s Benapole with India, he added
Pretending to take a bath, Hafiz and his associates would bring the weapons underwater to the Bangladesh border. The criminals would then presumably hide the arms in secret places close to the border areas. Later, they would send the firearms to different places of Dhaka from the border areas, commissioner added.
When asked about Hafiz’s arrest, DMP commissioner said: “We acted on a tip-off from our source. A team of DB conducted a raid in-front of Korea Technical, arresting Hafiz on Monday at around 10pm.
Police recovered four foreign-made arms and 17 rounds of bullets from his possession. A case has been filed at Mirpur Model Police Station against him.”
DMP Commissioner also said that during primary investigation, it was revealed that Habibur(Hafiz’s associate) would contact a man named Jahangir in North 24 Pargana’s Bangram village in India.
The man would charge TK30,000 for each weapon and Hafiz would sell those at a high price in Bangladesh.
He also said that the weapons are used in various types of destructive or terrorist activities for political instability including militancy.