2 cops held on charge of mugging

Two police constables were arrested for allegedly mugging an egg trader for Tk 44,000 near the capital's Sonargaon Hotel intersection early yesterday.

Constables Latifuzzaman and Razikuzzaman of the Traffic (North) Division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police were suspended after trader Abdul Bashir Mona had filed a case against them with Shahbagh Police Station.

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Bashir caught Latifuzzaman red-handed. Police, however, said the two arrestees during primary interrogation denied their involvement in the mugging.

Police later formed a three-member committee, headed by the DMP additional deputy commissioner (Traffic North), to probe the incident.

“As a criminal case has been filed, we will investigate the case and put the two constables on trail if they are found guilty,” Maruf Hossain Sorder, deputy commissioner (Ramna Division) of DMP, told The Daily Star.

Egg wholesaler Bashir said the two uniformed cops intercepted his rickshaw-van near Pantha Kunja around 5:30am when he was returning to his shop on Tejgaon Station Road with the money after selling eggs to a client in Lalbagh.

The policemen asked Bashir why his trouser pocket looked full. They also questioned him whether he was carrying cannabis in his shirt pocket.

Bashir instantly pulled his mobile phone and money from the pocket and showed those to Latifuzzaman. The cop then took away the money, pretending he would check those.

“Latifuzzaman soon mounted his motorcycle and handed over the money to Razikuzzaman who rode pillion on the motorbike,” Bashir told The Daily Star.

As the two cops were not wearing name badges, Bashir suspected they were fake policemen.

The trader grabbed Razikuzzaman. As Latifuzzaman tried to flee with the motorcycle, the trader released Razikuzzaman and grabbed the other cop by his throat.

Hearing Bashir shouting for help, locals rushed to the spot and beat up Latifuzzaman.

Bashir soon called in his fellow traders who later handed over Latifuzzaman and his motorcycle to Shahbagh Police Station.

However, Razikuzzaman managed to flee with the money. Police later arrested him in the afternoon, but could not recover the money.

Amanat Ullah, president of Tejgaon Egg Traders Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd, alleged that some egg traders are mugged by people in police uniform every month. He, however, said traders do not lodge any compliant with police as they have no confidence in law enforcers to recover the money.

For example, he referred to two recent mugging incidents. Some uniformed policemen around a week ago intercepted trader Safar Ali's pick-up van near the Jahangir Gate at dead of night and snatched Tk 1.40 lakh from him, said Amanat.

Around 12 days back, muggers in police uniform intercepted the pick-up van of another egg trader Ashish Harun in Mohakhali area and mugged him for Tk 5,000, he added.