Bangladesh News

The army-led joint forces raided BNP chairperson’s Hawa Bhaban office in the capital’s Banani area in the wee hours of yesterday morning and seized many letters, files of documents, computer hard disks, and compact disks (CDs) from there.

The forces also recovered a list of party activists who in 2004 took examinations for getting jobs as sub-inspectors (SI) in the police department. Names of six to nine SI candidates from each district were on the list, sources said. There is a widespread allegation against BNP that it gave appointments to the posts of SIs on political consideration all over the country during its immediate past regime.

Police sources said a joint team of the army, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), and police personnel entered Hawa Bhaban around 12:00am in presence of the building’s caretakers and searched the place extensively for about six hours.

During the search the crack forces seized many letters, files of documents, five computer hard disks and 20 CDs.

The forces checked some of the CDs and found that those contain movies while they have yet to check the hard disks.

After the raid had ended at 6:00am the forces handed over a list of the seized items to the employees of Hawa Bhaban.

Gulshan police filed a general diary in connection with the raid.

Our Manikganj correspondent reported that the joint forces yesterday arrested Ghior Union Parishad (UP) Chairman Meer Atoar Rahman on charges of misappropriating funds allocated for the UP, while police arrested two suspected extortionists Abu Saleh Uddin Mahmud Ponir and Anwar Hossain from Saturia upazila of the district with eight bullets in their possession.

Our Patuakhali correspondent reported that the joint forces seized 45 metric tons of rice worth about Tk 7.75 lakh meant for allowances of workers engaged in a construction work under Char Kajal Ashrayan Project, raiding two shops under Galachipa upazila headquarters and Ulania Bazar under the same administrative area.

Project sources said Char Kajal UP Chairman Ali Ahmed received the 45 tons of rice from a government warehouse.

Ali Ahmed however told The Daily Star over the phone that he received the rice 15 days ago and distributed it among the workers of the project.

Our staff correspondent from Khulna reported that police yesterday recovered 160 sheets of corrugated iron (CI) meant for government relief, from a pond at Mahashwarpasha in the city’s Daulatpur area, but could not arrest anyone in connection with the recovery.