18 Rab men withdrawn

Rab yesterday withdrew its 18 members, including a company commander, from Rab-3 over an allegation of embezzling money seized during the arrest of four persons in the capital's Mugda on May 14.
They have been attached to the headquarters, according to Rab officials.
The Mugda police said they had found inconsistencies between an arrestee's statement and the first information report of a case filed over the seizure of yaba pills and money from the four.  
Dhaka Metropolitan Police yesterday morning uploaded the news of the Rab men's withdrawal on its online news portal.
But, interestingly, the news was taken off the portal after two hours.
In a brief explanation last night, the DMP said the news was uploaded on the portal based on information from other news portals. It later withdrew the news as it didn't go with DMP's publishing policy.
Meanwhile, the Rab headquarters blamed the DMP for publishing “false news deliberately”.
In a statement last night, it said such news has not only tainted the image of Rab but also demoralised the members of the reputed law enforcement agency.
Rab, however, said some Rab-3 members were attached to the headquarters, which it said is a normal practice for running investigations into allegations against its members.
The latest development happened at a time when three Rab-11 officials face allegations of abduction and murder of the seven people in Narayanganj.
Additional Deputy Inspector General Mallick Fakhrul Islam, commanding officer of Rab-3, told The Daily Star that the 18 Rab men had been attached to the headquarters over some allegations.
Islam, however, declined to give details.
He said Maj Ali Ahsan, company commander of Crime Prevention Company (CPC) of Rab-3, is among the 18 Rab men.
The CPC is responsible for preventing crimes in the capital's Sabujbagh and Mugda Police Station areas.
On Wednesday, a CPC team, led by Deputy Additional Director Helal Uddin, detained four people from Mugda area around 4:30am, said Mostafizur Rahman, officer-in-charge (Investigation) of Mugda Police Station.
The four are Tanvir Ahmed, Mohammad Sajib, Mohammad Sohag and Kamal.
Of the arrestees, one is a suspected yaba trader, he said.
Assistant Sub-inspector Syed Mahmud of the CPC filed a case with the police station in this connection on that day.
According to the FIR, the Rab-3 men seized 260 yaba pills worth around Tk 1.04 lakh and about Tk 37,881 from the arrestees.
“But in primary interrogation, Tanvir said they were carrying more money than the amount shown in the FIR,” Mostafizur said.
The OC, however, said arrestees usually give conflicting information during interrogation and the law enforcers always cross-check those.
The Rab formed in 2004 to combat militancy and serious crimes has recently come under fire from various quarters over allegations of extra-judicial killings.
Serious allegations were raised against the elite force early this month after the abductions and killings of seven people in Narayanganj.
On April 27, Narayanganj panel mayor Nazrul Islam and his four aides, and lawyer Chandan Sarker and his driver were kidnapped almost at the same time after they left the court area by two cars.
Six bodies, including those of Nazrul and Chandan, were found floating in the Shitalakkhya river on April 30 while the other was found the next day.
On May 3, Nazrul's father-in-law Shahidul Islam alleged that Narayanganj ward-4 Councillor Nur Hossain gave a bribe of Tk 6 crore to Rab men for killing Nazrul.
Three Rab officials -- Lt Col Tareque Sayeed Mohammad, Maj Arif Hossain and Lt Commander Masud Rana -- were forced into retirement following the allegations.
They were later arrested and placed on remand for their alleged involvement in the abductions and killings.