Bangladesh News

Before proper probes into the break-ins of Bangladesh Railway offices in Dhaka and Chittagong, the communication secretary yesterday said no important files and documents were stolen, adding confusion to the mysterious incident early Monday.

Initially it was suspected that the criminals broke into the offices to steal documents or records related to railway’s land properties, lease of land or documents of different projects to hide monetary corruption.

Communication Secretary Iqbal Mahmud told reporters in a rushed briefing at the secretariat, “No important documents went missing from Dhaka Railway Bhaban according to the information we have got so far.”

Terming the incident mysterious, unfortunate and shameful, he said the burglars stole Tk 92,719, a laptop and four cellphones from the Dhaka office and some old timetable charts and documents from the Chittagong office. The documents were not “that significant”, he said.

Mahmud said separate executive and police investigations are underway and he expects the mystery to be unearthed.

The government formed three investigation committees after the break in but members of the probe committees, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and detective agency sources said they are yet to find anything concrete.

CID chief Additional Inspector General Md Javed Patwari told The Daily Star, “We have collected finger prints and other evidence. Our investigation is on and we are hopeful that our intelligence members would be successful in unearthing the mystery.”

Habib Ahmed, joint director general (engineering) of Bangladesh Railway and head of one of the probe committees, said, “Our investigation is going on. Hopefully, we will find something out.”

He said, “They have no relation with the communication secretary’s press briefing and the secretary’s statement was on initial findings, not the findings of this probe committee.”

The railway authorities had suspended seven security officials and guards for negligence in duties after the incident as officials and employees on reaching their offices Monday morning found their office rooms turned upside down.

Officer-in-charge of Shahbagh Police Station Rezaul Karim said they have quizzed security guards of Railway Bhaban.

“Some officials of the Railway Bhaban are involved in the incident…I believe. Hopefully we will unearth the mystery,” he said.

A three-member probe committee was also formed headed by Joint Secretary of Bangladesh Railway Nasrin Akhter to probe the Railway Bhaban break-in.

To probe the mysterious break-in in Chittagong, the authorities formed another three-member committee headed by Mohammad Omar Faruq, assistant transport officer of Bangladesh Railway. The committee was asked to submit the report immediately. Other members of the committee are Assistant Commercial Officer Snehashis Das Gupta and Assistant Commandant Abdur Rob.

A member of this probe committee suspects that the criminals might have been looking for documents related to Bangladesh Railway’s land properties or documents of lease of land, which were in the building, but they mistakenly stole documents of little value.

“Such land- and lease-related documents, files and records are kept at the adjacent DEO (Divisional Estate Office) in the same building,” Faruk said.

Most of the documents stolen were four to 20 years old and their conditions were so bad that the criminals probably would not be able to sell them to paper recyclers, Faruk said.