It took Raja Mia, a picklock, just half-an-hour to open the vault at the Brac Bank branch in Joypurhat.
He along with Manjurul Hasan Shamim, the mastermind of the heist, and seven others made away with Tk 1.96 crore from the branch at Bank Para in the town on September 26.
As part of the plot to rob the bank, Shamim rented a room at Mousumi Market that shares its wall with Shahjahan Mansion which houses the bank on the first floor. He used the name of a so-called NGO "Bangladesh Poor Development Ltd" to rent the room on September 12.
Watching the bank's activities, the gang started boring a hole in the wall, and it took them six days to finish the job.
Raja, Shamim and two others entered the vault room through the opening on September 26 night and immediately dis-
connected the lines of CCTV cameras and the alarm.
Four others - Bulu, Swapan, Iqbal and Nawsher - kept watch outside, while their accomplice Badal operated from the capital.
It all came to light after Rapid Action Battalion arrested Raja, Shamim, and five others in separate drives in the capital and elsewhere over the last two days.
Rab said it seized Tk 56 lakh from them, and was trying to recover the remaining money.
The elite force arrested Raja, who once worked at a shoe store, in Munshiganj on Wednesday.
Acting on information gleaned from him, Rab personnel arrested Shamim and five others from different places, Rab's Legal and Media Wing Director Mufti Mahmud Khan said at a press briefing at the Rab headquarters in the capital yesterday.
The five are - Badal Mallik alias Babla,
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MK Quddusur Rahman Bulu, ex-ansar member Swapan Debnath, and his nephews Anup Chandra Pandit and Plaban Chandra Pandit.
Anup and Plaban didn't take part in the heist They were arrested for possessing Tk 10 lakh of the robbed money they got from their uncle Swapan, according to Rab.
Of the nine who committed the robbery, Taj Mahmud, Nawsher, Iqbal and Islam are on the run, said Rab.
Meanwhile, Abdur Rashid, officer-
in-charge of Joypurhat Sadar Police Station, told this correspondent that police arrested Iqbal Huda Iku withTk 9 lakh of the robbed money from Kushtia on Wednesday.
Rab, however, couldn't confirm whether he was the same Iqbal, who had been involved in the robbery.
Raja is an accused in several cases filed for burglaries, including the one at Brae Bank's Kalabagan branch in 2002, according to Rab.
As Raja and his 20 accomplices failed to unlock the bank's vault, they looted gold ornaments weighing 250
tolas from a drawer at the bank.
Raja, who was arrested several times in different cases, got acquainted with Shamim at Dhaka Central Jail in 2008, said Rab.
Though the bank officials claimed the criminals took away Tk 1.96 crore, the arrestees told Rab officials that they robbed Tk 1.63 crore from the bank's vault.
During primary interrogation, the arrestees said Raja took Tk 31 lakh, Shamim 33 lakh, Islam 12.5 lakh, Taj 8 lakh, Bulu and Iqbal 33 lakh, Swapan 18 lakh, Nawsher 14 lakh and Badal Tk
9 lakh.
Leaving aside the notes of smaller denominations, the gang took only Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 notes from the bank's vault and divided the money among themselves at their rented office room, said Rab.
Md Hasanuzzaman, an official of the bank's SME section, discovered the heist as he entered the branch office around 10:00am on September 27.
He saw the vault open and the money gone, Joypurhat police had said earlier quoting him.