Inhabitants of a remote village in Comilla’s Chauddagram upazila were surprised on Saturday evening when more than a dozen cars full of heavily armed Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members cordoned off a house.
They had little idea that Awami Jubo League’s Dhaka south unit President Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat and Vice-President Enamul Haque Arman were hiding in that house in the Kunjashreepur village under the Alkara union. RAB carried out the drive to arrest them.
Samrat, the most talked-about person of interest since law enforcement agencies started raiding illegal casinos in Dhaka last month, and his close associate Arman have been hiding there for the past several days.
The village is near the Bangladesh-India border, and Samrat and Arman were likely waiting for the opportunity to cross over and flee into the neighbouring country, according to sources.
The duo was taken into custody in the early hours of yesterday and brought to Dhaka later in the day — between which Jubo League cut ties with both of them.
“They had resorted to different tricks to avoid arrest. We had to work hard to trace him,” RAB Director General (DG) Benazir Ahmed told reporters at the elite force’s headquarters later.
The two-storey building in Kunjashreepur, from where Samrat and Arman were arrested, is owned by local Jamaat-e-Islami leader Monir Chowdhury — a distant cousin of Samrat and the brother-in-law of Feni Municipality Mayor and Awami League leader Haji Alauddin.
Monir’s ailing mother, his sister and her family live in the house, while Monir lives in Feni town and his family in Dhaka.
Locals said Samrat and Arman, since their arrival, have been staying in a room on the second floor of that building. That room was kept locked from the outside, but lights inside the room were seen on sometimes.
Some villagers even saw the duo sitting beside a pond one evening. But they never talked to anyone. Since their arrival, Monir and Alauddin had visited the home several times.
Monir’s niece Samia Jannat Chowdhury said: “We are watching television around 9:30pm [Saturday], when RAB officers in several vehicles arrived. Some officers entered the house after more vehicles arrived.”
RAB officers asked them about the whereabouts of the two men and a little later they came down from the first floor with Samrat and Arman, she said. Both Monir and Alauddin were present at the time.
Around 1:15am yesterday, the RAB team left the house with the two arrestees.
Later in the day, briefing reporters at RAB Headquarters, DG Benazir Ahmed said it took them more than the usual time to locate Samrat’s whereabouts. “He went into hiding within two days after the raids in illegal casinos started across the country.
“As the media was on him [since the raids began], Samrat applied various techniques to avoid the law enforcement agencies and his arrest.”
Jubo League leaders Samrat and Arman’s names had come up into the spotlight after a raid busted an illegal casino inside Muktijoddha Sangsad Krira Chakra in Dhaka’s Gulistan on September 18.
Samrat ran that casino and received specific percentage of revenues every day from the other illegals casinos set up in different sporting clubs in the capital’s Motijheel area, according to media reports.
Arman, who is known for being his close collaborator, has also been allegedly involved in the casino business.
