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Sugar 'hoarding' in Jessore

3 warehouses sealed off; probe starts

A Correspondent, Jessore
The district administration yesterday started probing alleged hoarding of sugar by two importers as 74,340 sacks of sugar were seized from their warehouses in Jessore on Saturday night.
A three-member probe body headed by Additional Deputy Commissioner Safina Begum visited the three warehouses which have been sealed off, and began looking into the import documents. It is to complete its task within 72 hours.
Earlier, a joint team of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), police
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and National Security Intelligence (NS1) led by NSI Assistant Director Tofazzal Hossain raided the three warehouses belonging to Joint Trading Corporation Sheikh Brothers in Nawapara at about midnight on Saturday. It seized 74,340 sack? qf jtygar eachcqpWW., ing 50 kg and sealed off the godowns.
Safina Begum told reporters. “We want to find out if the importers stocked sugar for market manipulation."
Two other members of the probe body are Additional Superintendent of Police Zakir Hossain and District Marketing Officer Sujat H Khan.
Contacted. Tofazzal Hossain said, “ Sugar was stored in the three godowns around one and a half years ago. But it was not sold despite the recent crisis of it in the market."
Rafiqul Islam, one of the owners of Sheikh Brothers, said, “We imported sugar (now’ seized) about a year ago at a price of Tk 38 a kg but its irice at the time was only Tk
27-28 a kg in domestic market. So, we had to stock it for a certain period. But we have already sold our stock at a price of Tk 42-45 a kg as allowed by the authorities."
Meanwhile, Officer-in-Charge ofAbhoynagar police station in Jessore Humayun Kabir, when contacted by our
Khulna, said the three warehouses were raided when hundreds of sacks of sugar were being loaded in trucks for dispatch to different destinations. He mentioned that 1,200 sacks were sold out to Asha Traders in Khulna.
Asked about this, owner of Asha Traders Sirajul Islam denied buying sugar from the Jessore importers.
Intelligence sources said over 150,000 sacks of sugar imported from Indja were hoarded in the godowns prior to the month of Ramadan And the importers started selling it in the market in the wake of the government order for arrest of eight alleged members of the syndicate for manipulating sugar market.