Bangladesh News

A Chittagong court for the second time ordered further investigation into the cases filed in connection with the haul of 10 truckloads of deadly weapons and huge quantity of ammunition at Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd jetty on April 2, 2004 to find out the real culprits.

Mystery shrouds over the identity of the smugglers while the destination and place of shipment of the huge cache of firearms remain unknown even though 46 months have passed since the haul.

The Court of Chittagong Metropolitan Sessions Judge ANM Bashir Ullah ordered the Chittagong Metropolitan Police commissioner yesterday to appoint an efficient and honest investigating officer (IO) to conduct further investigation of the case and submit the report by April 15–the scheduled date for the next hearing of the case.

In the order, the court said further investigation is required as the time demands for it and to find out the real culprits.

The court observed that the previous two IOs did not investigate deep into the case or mention anything about who brought the firearms, the place of shipment and their destinations.

The order was made after Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) Humayun Kabir Russell filed an appeal on November 19 last year, saying it could not be ruled out that the weapons and ammunition came from a ship at the outer anchorage of Chittagong port and then loaded on vessels.

It is important to know the names of all the vessels that were at the outer anchorage of the port at that time, their import manifests and Onward Customs Declaration they made in Singapore, the APP said.

Logs of the vessels should have been looked into and the speed of the vessels should have been figured out to know how much time they took to reach the outer anchorage of Chittagong port from Singapore.

A number of the hauled arms and ammunition went missing from the custody of the law enforcers. Two police sergeants were held in this connection and three of the missing firearms were recovered, said the APP in the appeal.

The previous two IOs made no investigation into these things, he observed.

Public Prosecutor (PP) Ahsanul Haq Hena said the previous two IOs did not investigate the case properly.

“The then government also cannot ignore their responsibility since the firearms and ammunition were offloaded on a restricted area of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd jetty, which is under the control of the Ministry of Industries,” said the PP while talking to The Daily Star yesterday.

Six sub-machine guns (SMGs) and 28 grenades went missing from police custody. Later, Rapid Action Battalion personnel held police sergeants Alauddin and Helaluddin to recover three of the missing SMGs from Feni and Barguna.

But, the investigation report did not mention anything about these, said the PP.

Two cases were filed with Karnaphuli Police Station following the recovery of the arms and ammunition while being offloaded from two engine boats on the Karnaphuli.

One of the cases was lodged under section 25/B of the Special Powers Act for smuggling arms and the other under section 19(ka) of the Arms Act.

The CID started investigating the cases on April 26 after Officer-in-charge of Karnaphuli Police Station and IO Ahadur Rahman was dropped for his controversial investigation.

Kabir Uddin Ahmed, assistant superintendent of police for CID Chittagong region, submitted the charge sheet on June 11, 2004, accusing 39 people in the arms case.

The Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court framed the charges on October 24.

Thirty-six of the 39 accused have meanwhile been released on bail while Hafizur Rahman alias Hafiz, Deen Mohammad and Firoz Ahmed are behind bars.

Hafiz is one of the prime accused in the case while Deen Mohammad, owner of Friends Syndicate of the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd jetty, and Firoz Ahmed, owner of a trawler used for the smuggling, were Hafiz’s close aides.

However, the home ministry did not take any confessional statement from Hafiz under 164 at that time.

In the country’s largest arms haul, the joint forces seized 10 truckloads of 10,000 arms, including SMGs, AK47 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades (RPG) and RPG launchers, 2,000 grenades and 3 lakh bullets.

The arms and ammunition included 690 7.62mm SMG T-56-1 and 2,792 magazines for them, 600 7.62mm SMG T-56-2 and 2,400 magazines, 400 9mm automatic carbines and 800 magazines, 100 Tommy Guns and 400 magazines, 150 40mm T-69 RPG launchers and 840 RPGs, 2,000 launching tubes (Ugo rifles), 150 aiming devices for the RPG launchers, 4,00,000 7.25×25 ball pistol bullets, 7,39,680 bullets for T-56 pistols, and 25,020 NV grenades.

A number of political bigwigs of the then ruling BNP were then suspected of having links with the arms haul.