Armed robbers looted around Tk 33.25 lakh in diamond and gold ornaments and cash from the house of a former lawmaker at Uttara in the capital in the early hours yesterday.

The gang also took away a licensed pistol and 77 cartridges of a shotgun, the duty officer of the Turag Police Station said quoting the First Information Report (FIR) filed yesterday by Nilofar Khandaker, daughter of former lawmaker Marium Begum.

However, Shumona Hasan, another daughter of the former MP, told The Daily Star yesterday

Ex-MP's house

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afternoon that they estimated the worth of the looted valuables to be something between Tk 50 to 60 lakh. A licensed pistol, its 27 bullets and 148 cartridges of a licensed shotgun have also been looted, she added.

She said that the gang of seven robbers entered the house on Road 9 in Sector 5 in Uttara at around 2:00am cutting the window grills of the ground floor of the three-storied building and tied up and blindfolded three domestic helps at first at gun point.

Then they entered the rooms of Marium Begum and Nilofar on the 1st floor and also took them hostage in the similar fashion. They looted the valuables and the arms from the almirahs after taking the keys from her mother and sister, she said.

The criminals, aged between 25 and 30, also asked for the keys of the private cars before leaving the scene after nearly one and half hours long raid, but could not manage to get those, as the keys were with the drivers, Shumona said.

She suspected that as one of the robbers was wearing a mask, he might have been someone known to the family.

Shumona also alleged that they hardly found any police patrolling in their locality, just outside the Rajuk area.

Police could neither arrest anyone, nor recover the looted goods as of 7:00pm yesterday.