FM Mizanur Rahaman, Ctg

Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) is going to press charges against six suspended police constables of Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP) who were arrested for extorting money after abducting a businessman in Anwara upazila.

Investigators said arrested constable Md Masud, former bodyguard of a deputy commissioner (DC) of CMP, is the mastermind of the crime and they did it to embezzle the gambling money of victim’s younger brother.

Police officials also said they found evidence against the former police personnel after recording deposition of witnesses and circumstantial evidence while investigating the case filed with Anwara Police Station.

Earlier, Anwara police arrested constables -- Abdul Nabi, Md Eskandar Hossain, Md Monirul Islam, Md Shakil Khan, Md Masud, and Morshed Billah -- after the six allegedly picking up a contractor named Abdul Mannan from his house on February 4 night and extorted money from him.

Inspector Mohiuddin Selim of PBI, also investigation officer (IO) of the case, told The Daily Star, “We are wrapping up the investigation. We have recorded depositions of around 15 persons who witnessed the incident.”

“While investigating the incident and analysing evidence, police found that Masud plotted the crime while five others assisted him to carry it out,” said inspector Selim.

PBI sources said Abdul Mannan’s younger brother had amassed huge sums of money through online cricket gambling, and constable Masud had learned of the information.

Masud hatched a plot to embezzle the money by picking up Mannan’s younger brother, but he was outside of home coincidentally that day.

PBI sources told the newspaper that failing to get Mannan’s brother, the six -- along with two police sources -- picked Mannan introducing themselves as DB police, and took him to Vellapara Bridge area of Patiya. There they extorted money from the businessman’s family keeping him hostage.

“A boy, a staffer of a tea stall who witnessed the ransom handover incident, also identified the six constables in his deposition. After picking him up, they took Mannan in front of the tea stall,” said a PBI officer, seeking not to be named.