Burglars broke into two offices in the well-protected Bangladesh Secretariat and ransacked 17 rooms sometime between late Tuesday night and the early hours of Wednesday. ' *

Surprisingly the burglars took nothing except a tape recorder from the room of the Principal Information Officer of the Press Information Depa-'rtment (PID). Abdur Rahim.

The burglars broke open nine rooms in the PID on the second and third floors and eight rooms of the Health Ministry, on the first floor of the same building.

. This was the second daring

burglary at the Secretariat this year. Six rooms of the Ministry of Environment and Forests were burgled on January 2 this year.

The burglars also tried to break open the vault of the Accounts Section of the PID where about 1.97 lakh Taka being the salary and bonus of the staff was kept, officials said.

They broke open a number of file cabinets and steel almi-rahs and ransacked them. The valuables like a colour TV set, a wall clock, a fax machine and other stationeries remained untouched.

Both police and Secretariat officials said the thieves gdt inside breaking through five collapsible gates and a number of security locks of the rooms..

The rooms of M Azizul Karim, a joint-chief of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. M Siddlqur Rahman Majumder, a Deputy Secretary of the same ministry. Abdur Rahim, Principal Information Officer and M M^ikbul Ahmed, Additional - Principal Information Officer were broken open.

Talking to The Daily Star. Makbul Ahmed said the thieves were skilled and took enough time to ransack all the rooms.

He expressed surprise and concern over the repeated burglaries in the well protected Secretariat building. "The motive is still a mystery ...Only police can find it out," he added.

In January, a fire broke out mysteriously in. a room of the Ministry of Religious Affairs where some papers and materials were gutted.

And last year, some burglars broke open a room of the Civil Aviation Ministry but no loos was reported. A good amount of cash was taken away by the burglars from the office of the Science and Technology Division.

However, the keys to the doors and the collapsible gates are generally kept with a caretaker. A contingent of police force under an ASP works round the clock in the Secretariat fof its security.

A case was lodged with the Ramna police station. But no headway was made In the police investigation Into any of the previous cases.