Ctg arms haul still a mystery

The investigators could not yet trace the persons who imported the consignment of deadly weapons and the vessel used to carry those. They also failed to gather information about the source and final destination of the weapons.

Though the probe bodies got the identities of prime suspects involved in offloading of the weapons at CUFL jetty, police are yet to arrest the prime suspects-- Hafizur Rahman, Din Mohammad, Haji Sobhan, Abul Kasem Madhu and Burmaiya Jahur.

CID police responsible for probing the case said that they were now busy with preparing charge sheet as it has to be submitted within 60 days of the case as per law.

"But we have scope to submit supplementary charge sheets if we can trace any other accused or find clues related with this case," Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) of CID Kabir Uddin, also investigation officer (IO) of the April 2 arms haul case, said.

"We will continue our investigation even after submission of charge sheet and our hunt will be on to nab the prime suspects," he said.

As per law, in case of seizure of weapons the charge sheet is required to be submitted within 60 days, excluding government holidays, from filing of the case, police said.

Kabir said that it would be difficult to unravel the mystery until and unless the prime suspects are arrested.

"If we can arrest them we would get all the answers relating to those vital questions -- who imported the consignment of deadly weapons, from which port or country it came, whose vessel was used to carry those and their final destination," he added.

"We began a manhunt to nab those prime suspects and it would continue," he said.

CID police were tasked to probe the arms haul case on April 26 as the Officer in-Charge of Karnaphuli thana Ahadur Rahman was dropped from the responsibility of investigation officer (IO) of the case for his controversial role.

So far, police arrested 21 people including truck drivers hired for carrying the weapons, owner of the crane, crew of a trawler that brought the cargo from outer anchorage and a female union parishad member.

Police sent the arrested accused to jail after the court had rejected their bail prayers.

CID sources said that the names of arrested might be included in the charge sheet.

The cache of arms and ammunition hauled here included 1290 sub-machine guns, 25000 hand grenades, 300 rocket launchers, 840 rockets,100 tommy guns, 2000 rocket tubes and 1.15 million ammunitions.