Six Chittagong DB officers suspended for 3.5C extortion

Six officers from Chittagong Metropolitan Police's Detective Branch (DB) have been suspended over extortion of Tk3.5 crore by threatening individuals with crossfire in Chittagong.

CMP Commissioner Krishna Pada Roy issued the directive following the submission of an investigation committee's report into the incident.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (Public Relations) Spina Rani Pramanik announced the decision to the media on Thursday morning.

The dismissed officers are CMP Detective Branch's North-South Zone's Sub-Inspector (SI) Md Alamgir Hossain, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Md Babul Mia, Md Shah Paran Jannat, Mainul Hossain, Zahidur Rahman, and Abdur Rahman.

Additionally, Inspector Ruhul Amin, from the DB of CMP's North and South Zone and alleged leader of the incident, has been summoned for explanation.

Meanwhile, the CMP commissioner's order was forwarded to the deputy commissioners of CMP in charge of DB (North-South) and Sadar, the assistant commissioner of reserved police branch, and the secret branch on Wednesday.

Deputy Commissioner of CMP (Sadar) Md Abdul Warish confirmed the information, adding: "We received the order suspending six DB members yesterday (Wednesday). A departmental case against them is underway."

On March 2, following a complaint alleging the embezzlement of Tk3.5 crore under threat of crossfire, the CMP commissioner formed a three-member probe committee. Headed by Asif Mohiuddin, additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of CMP's Counter-Terrorism Wing, the committee, including DB ADC Sheikh Mohammad Shabbir and Double Mooring Zone Assistant Commissioner Mukur Chakma, submitted its report on Tuesday.

Earlier, allegations have raised that a team of CMP's Detective Branch extorted Tk3.5 crore from Abu Bakkar Siddique, a government-approved freelancer, on February 26.

Abu Bakkar claimed he was arrested on the night of February 26 in Gulbag residential area under Bayezid Bostami police station under CMP.

While in custody of the detective branch, he alleged that they transferred Tk5-10 lakh from two bank accounts via mobile banking using his phone. Additionally, approximately $2.77 million, equivalent to around Tk3.38 crore in Bangladeshi currency, was reportedly transferred from his Binance account (cryptocurrency exchange).