Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested three people, including a sacked driver, in connection with the abduction of a woman joint tax Commissioner.
Based on secret information, a joint team of the elite force, comprising the Intelligence wing of the Rab headquarters, Rab-1 and Rab-3 battalions, conducted simultaneous drives in Sreepur of Gazipur district and Sabuj Bagh area of the capital on Friday night.
They arrested the sacked driver Masum alias Masud, 42, and his two associates--Md Abdul Jalil alias Pannu, 48, and Md. Hafiz alias Shahni,48.
During preliminary interrogation, the arrested persons gave information about their involvement in the abduction.
The female Joint Tax Commissioner of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) was kidnapped by some miscreants from Baily Road under Ramna police station on August 17 evening. Later, 18 hours after the abduction, local people rescued her from Madartek area of the capital on August 18.
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A case was filed with Ramna police station under the Prevention of Women and Child Abuse Act accusing the former car driver Masum alias and his two other accomplices on August 19.
Briefing reporters at Rab's Karwan Bazar media centre on Saturday, RAB Legal and Media Wing Director Commander Khandaker Al Moin said preliminary investigation revealed that the arrested Masud was earlier working as the woman joint commissioner's private car driver.
She dismissed driver Masud from service due to personal disciplinary reasons. As a result, the arrested Masud developed personal anger and resentment towards her, the RAB's Director (Media) said.
Commander Moin said during interrogation, arrested Masud revealed that the first husband of the female joint commissioner's former husband Haroon Or Rashid contacted him after he was sacked from her job. Harun offered driver Masud a huge amount of money and a better life in exchange for kidnapping his ex-wife and dropping her at a house in the capital's Hatirjheel area. Harun gave Masud an advance of Tk 70,000.
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Later on August 15, driver Masood discussed the matter with his accomplices Hafiz, Panu, Raju, Sabbir, Saiful and Shanta about the plan and distributed the money paid to all of them. They decided to kidnap the woman joint commissioner victim from the capital's Bailey Road area.
According to the plan, they stayed in the Bailey Road area on August 17 evening. When the female joint commissioner reached Bailey Road area by her car from Moghbazar at around 8:15pm, they stopped her car with a motorcycle and a rickshaw as per the plan. When her driver got down to move the motorcycle and rickshaw, they beat him up and the arrested Masud sat on the driving seat of the vehicle and took control of the vehicle.
At that time the arrested Panu along with other accomplices got into the car and forcibly abducted the victim and proceeded to Hatirjheel and informed the victim's ex-husband Harun about the abduction. He then gave them the address of a house in Hatirjheel and asked them to take her there. But when they went there, they found the main gate of that house closed, so they started wasting time by driving her to different areas of the capital. Later, at around midnight, she was taken to a known garage of Masud in Kanchpur area. They allegedly tortured her and demanded a ransom of Tk 50 lakh from her and took away Tk 1.50 lakh in cash and mobile phone from her.
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Later on 18 August at around 1030 am, they took her to Madartek area and stayed till Friday prayers. At that time, when the arrested Masud contacted her first husband, he asked them to take them there after Friday prayers. Later, when it was lunch time, Masud, Raju and Sabbi went to get food and Panu, Saiful and Shanto stayed outside the car. At that time, when the victim started shouting, the local people rescued the victim and nabbed Saiful, Sabbir and Raju but Masud, Panu and Shanta managed to escape from the spot.
Later the police came and took the victim into custody and arrested Saiful, Sabbir and Raju and recovered the victim's laptop and mobile phone from them.