COX'S BAZAR, Sept 20: Seven suspended members of the Detective Branch (DB) of police have been jailed for seven years in a case filed over realising Tk 17 lakh ransom after abducting a businessman at Teknaf in Cox's Bazar district.
The convicts are the then DB police's sub-inspectors (SIs) Moniruzzaman and Abul Kalam Azad, ASIs Feroz, Golam Mostafa and Alauddin and two constables Al Amin and Mostafa Azam.
Cox's Bazar District Sessions and Judges Court's Judge Mohammad Ismail handed down the verdict on Tuesday in presence of the seven accused. The court, at the same time, fined each of the convist Tk 1 lakh. In defaul, to suffer one year more in jail.
The judge started reading the verdict at 11:00am. Later at 12:20pm, he pronounced the judgment.
"The Judge delivered this verdict as the allegations were proved. They have been given five years jail terms under Section 365 and seven 7 years under Section 386. Both sentences are to be served concurrently. For this, the total sentence will be counted as seven years," said Advocate Mohammad Jahangir, the lawyer for the plaintiff in the case.
Public prosecutor Adv Faridul Islam said on October 24 in 2017, people in plain clothes, introducing them as DB officials, picked up Teknaf-based businessman Abdul Gafur on a microbus from Cox's Bazar.
They demanded Tk 1 crore in ransom from the victim's family by threatening to kill him in 'crossfire'. After negotiation, the family agreed to pay the abductors Tk 17 lakhs. Getting the money, Abdul Gafur was released at Shamlapur on the Cox's Bazar-Teknaf Marine Drive road early next morning.
Following the incident, Abdul Gafur's family members informed an officer at the Army security post in the area. When the DB policemen were crossing the Marine Drive Road on board a microbus, the Army personnel stopped the microbus and found Tk 17 lakh after searching inside the vehicle.
At that time, DB SI Moniruzzaman ran away, but the remaining six people were arrested by Army personnel. They were, later, suspended from the Detective Branch.
Abdul Gafur filed a case with Teknaf Police Station against SIs Moniruzzaman and Abul Kalam Azad, ASIs Feroz, Golam Mostafa and Alauddin and two constables Al Amin and Mostafa Azam.
Ten months after the incident, Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) submitted charge sheet against seven suspended DB policemen in the first week of August in 2018.
All the convicts are now in jail. Plaintiff Abdul Gafur's elder brother expressed satisfaction over the verdict.
