Bangladesh News

The joint forces seized over six lakh sacks of spurious and date-expired fertiliser and adulterated pesticides and sealed off two factories and 14 warehouses during separate raids across the country yesterday.
Besides, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-11) seized a huge amount of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and telecommunication equipments in Munshiganj.

In Pabna, the joint forces seized a huge haul of spurious and date-expired fertilisers during a raid at Nagarbari fertiliser market, the largest market in the northern part of the country, reports our correspondent from Pabna. Some six lakh sacks of sub-standard fertiliser were seized, which would have fetched around Tk 30 crore to the unscrupulous traders.

Led by Magistrate Akhtar Masud, the joint forces also arrested seven people in this connection. Three of them were identified as Rafiqullah, an union parishad (UP) chairman, Abdul Jabbar Mollah, owner of Jabbar Trading and Rowshan Ali, a former UP chairman.

The seized fertiliser included, urea, TSP, Potash and banned FMP fertiliser.

The drive will go on until all spurious fertiliser stores are sealed off, Abu Bakar Siddiqui, upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) said adding that it is a large operation.

In Khulna, the police closed down a factory at the city’s Shiromoni under Khanjahan Ali Police Station, which marketed adulterated TSP fertilisers, says our staff correspondent there.

The law enforcers also recovered 250 sacks of soil and dust from the factory, owned by Ishtiaque Ahmed Romel, proprietor of Mitali Food Industries.

Security guard of the factory Al Mamun was arrested at the spot, who admitted that the dust and soil were used for manufacturing TSP fertiliser.

Earlier the joint forces had recovered 14,000 sacks of rotten wheat from four warehouses owned by the same Mitali Food Industries.

Meanwhile our correspondent from Sirajganj reports that Rab-12 busted a factory at Bohuti village under Sadar upazila on Monday night and seized 5,000 sacks of adulterated pesticides.

Five people were arrested from the factory. They are — Belal Hossain, Humayun Islam Khan, Abdus Sattar, Saiful Islam and Amirul Islam.

The Rab team also sealed off the factory, Rahman Pesticide and Company, owned by ZA Khan.

VoIP equipment seized in Munshiganj

In a special drive, Rab-11 seized a huge amount of VoIP and telecommunication equipments from an abandoned house of Srizan Nikari at Bhagra village under Sreenagar upazila of the district yesterday, our correspondent reports.

They seized nine gate ways, six networking modems and one computer with huge cables and some illegal papers related to VoIP business.

Scared of the ongoing countrywide raid against illegal VoIP business, owner of Daffodil IT Limited in Dhaka Suman Rahman had hidden the equipment at his grandfather’s house at Sreenagar, sources alleged.

Rab officials failed to arrest him during a drive at his Dhanmondi office yesterday morning and arrested his wife Sanzida Rahman, 25, who is the accounts officer of the company.