They took artefacts for precious stones

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Arrested Abbas Ali, alleged ringleader of “Abbas-Nasir” smuggling gang of Zia International Airport (ZIA), became a millionaire stealing goods from the cargo area of the airport while his cohort Nasir Uddin provided information about goods kept at ZIA.

Nasir, who joined ZIA as a janitor, lost his job due to his involvement in a theft case. He has also become a millionaire by providing information to the gang about

goods at ZIA for the last 20 years.

Abbas and Nasir said they stole the statuettes believing that those were made of precious stones.

They gave their stunning statement to journalists yesterday when they were paraded before a press briefing at the headquarters of Rapid Action Battalion-1 at Uttara in the city.

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested Abbas at Tilpapara in the city’s Khilgaon and Nasir at Mollahartek of Uttara Sunday night.

Abbas told journalist that on December 21 night his aides Nasir Uddin, driver of civil aviation department Monir Hossain, Hamid and Nikhil Chandra Das went to his Uttara home and handed him the two statuettes–one black and another white.

He said he broke the statuettes in two and realised that those were earthen.

Abbas also said they broke the statuettes into pieces in front of some neighbours including former Jatiya Party lawmaker Anwara Begum. They later dumped the fragments at the garbage dumping station of Uttara.

As the media started covering the theft incident, Abbas got frightened and he hid himself in a house in Khilgaon. Nasir also fled from his Mollahartek home but returned on December 25.

Rab-1 Commanding Officer Lt Col Sayadis Saqline, Rab Legal and Media Wing Director SMAK Azad, Major Atiqur Rahman of Rab Intelligence Wing briefed journalists about how the gang stole the Vishnu relics from ZIA.

Rab officials said they are conducting drives to arrest ZIA janitors Mohammad Ali and Abdur Razzak, associates of Abbas and Nasir.

On Sunday, investigators recovered four fragments that seemed to be parts of the two stolen statuettes. Experts of the National Museum were working to identify the fragments.

On Friday, around 200 Rab personnel and 25 Dhaka City Corporation teams rounded up around 200 fragments. Later, two National Museum officials identified 27 pieces on the spot as parts of the stolen idols. No officials from the museum were on the spot yesterday.

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