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9 of three families kidnapped, rescued

Victims, police claim of land grab bid, looting of belongings; 4 criminals arrested

Staff Correspondent
Police yesterday rescued the nine members of three Hindu families kidnapped by a gang of criminals from a workshop in the city’s Sutrapur area after eight hours of effort.
During the raid the law enforcers arrested four gangsters, who kidnapped the victims early yesterday from their houses in Hrishikesh Das Lane in the area and kept them tied and gagged at Janata Engineeringworkshop.
The police suspect the kidnapping has links to grabbing the piece of land on which the victims have an over 100-year-old building.
Armed local criminals picked up Nitai Chandra Das, 70, his cousin Shambhu Das, 50, Shambhu's wife Kajol Rani Das, 42, her son
Sajal, 14, and daughter Swarna, 8, Shambhu’s brother Mohabir Das, 45, his wife Lakshmi Rani Das, 38. her daughters Beauty, 18, and Sweety, 12, from their houses around 3:00am and confined them to the workshop.
The criminals also looted belongings including gold ornaments from the victims' houses.
The four arrested criminals are identified as Hossain Mohammad Babul, owner of the workshop. and his relatives Akter Hossain, Shohag and Nizam.
Quoting the victims, Officer-in-Charge of Sutrapur Police Station Tofazzal Hossain said the gang entered the house of Shambhu Das introducing themselves as police at about 3:00am and kidnapped the victims.
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The victims alleged that cadres of property developer Anandadhara Housing picked them up and forced them to sign on stamps as they refused to sell their land to the firm.
Nitai Das told The Daily Star that a gang of around 20 armed criminals repeatedly knocked at their doors on the ground and first floors of the building they live in saying they came to search the rooms for a criminal who took shelter in the building.
"As we did not open the doors they shouted at us and identified themselves as police and tried to break open the doors with iron rods," Nitai said.
"As we opened the door at one stage, the criminals entered the rooms and gagged us and started looting our belongings." he said, adding that the criminals then walked them to the workshop and confined them there.
Shambhu Das said he and his brother Mohabir and his cousin Nitai own the four kathas of land. The criminals tortured the three and their female family members and took their signatures on blank stamps, he added.
"Six months ago developer firm Anandadhara Housing gave us a proposal to sell the land to the firm or hand it over for developing. People from the firm made the same request several times as we refused." Shambhu said.
He said police reached Hrishikesh Lane half an hour after the criminals had taken the victims to the workshop at gunpoint.
Sutrapur Police Station OC Tofazzal said they reached the spot on information and arrested the four criminals at a nearby place. He said based on the information of the arrestees the law enforcers rescued the victims from the workshop where they were found lying on the floor, their hands tied with rope and mouths gagged with tape.
Tofazzal added that they suspect the land dispute is behind the incident.
AJamgir Khan, director of Anandadhara Housing, denied their involvement in the kidnapping. He said they offered the three families around six months ago to hand over the piece of land to them for developing but the owners of the land rejected the offer.