Police yesterday filed a case against three policemen, including a sub-inspector, of Rampura police station for misappropriating gold bars seized at the Shahjalal International Airport.
The accused are SI Manjurul Islam and constables Akash Chowdhury and Wahedul Islam.
Before filing the case the Detective Branch of police sought written permission from the Anti-Corruption Commission, said Alamgir Hossain, officer-in-charge of Rampura police station.
DB Inspector Fazlur Rahman filed the case, also accusing two informants named Rana and Sajib. Police arrested SI Manjurul, Wahid, Akash and Roni on March 31. Sajib is on the run.
The ACC will investigate the case.
On March 13, Rampura police seized a car with 235 gold bars, but the accused claimed they had recovered 70 bars and misappropriated the rest.
After the incident came to light, three policemen were arrested. OC Kripa Sindhu Bala was withdrawn from duty after the incident. The DB investigation found that police had links to the gold smugglers.
SI Manjurul and his patrol team, who were on duty at Banasree’s Balurmath area on March 13, chased a microbus on suspicion and later found the vehicle abandoned. They brought the vehicle to the police station and filed a GD.
On March 16, two individuals named Samir Biswas and Jahid Hossain came to the police station to claim the vehicle but could not provide any documents to prove their right. Later, police detained them and found that they were gold smugglers and were transporting 235 gold bars in the microbus.
On March 18, another case was filed with Rampura police station and was handed over to the DB on March 20.
Upon further interrogation, the detainees confirmed that there were 235 gold bars in the vehicle. The detectives then interrogated SI Manjurul and his patrol team and they confessed to misappropriating the gold bars.
One of the arrestees confessed to a court that after the seizure some smugglers sat in meetings with a high official of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police for negotiation. But the “deal” failed.
As the secret deal failed the smugglers leaked out the information to another police high official.
