Police counting gold bars at Kotwali Police Station in Chittagong early yesterday, hours after the haul at Bahar Market in the port city's Reazuddin Bazar. Photo: Star

Police are yet to arrest anyone for smuggling 250 gold bars recovered on Monday from a market in Chittagong.

Law enforcers, however, suspect one Abu Ahmad of smuggling the bars and keeping those in a room rented as a shoe storehouse at Reazuddin Bazar, sources at the Detective Branch of police said.

The bars weighing 25kg are still in Kotwali Police Station in the port city. Those have not been handed over to Bangladesh Bank since police did not get court's permission, said Officer-in-Charge Md Jasimuddin of the station.

On Monday night, a DB team raided Bahar Market in Reazuddin Bazar area and seized three safes. The gold bars worth Tk 12.2crore and cash Tk 60 lakh were found in two of them. The other was empty.

A syndicate of smugglers chose the market to store gold, as it is located at a place surrounded by numerous big and small business establishments, police said.

Of the three safes, two -- one containing gold bars -- were in a room on the fifth floor of Bahar Market and the third containing cash was in another room on the same floor, said Assistant Commissioner Kamruzzaman of DB.

A camera had been installed in the room that had gold bars stacked up and it was connected to a computer kept in the other room where cash was found, he said, adding that the camera could be operated by cell phones as well. 

Bahar Market's manager Md Elius said first and second floors were used by shops while rooms of the other floors of the six-storey building had been rented as storehouse or to bachelors.

"Mainly shop owners or their staff rented out the rooms and they did not collect national IDs,” he added.

AC Kamruzzaman said police were trying to contact the building owner to find out who had rented the rooms.

Sources in DB said smuggled gold enters reputed business spots through Chittagong Shah Amanat Airport. Even Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka and domestic routes are used to bring gold to markets. Gold is later smuggled to neighbouring countries.

'SHAMEFUL FOR THE NATION'

A parliamentary standing committee chief, meanwhile, has expressed anger over the failure to prevent gold smuggling and called for coordinated efforts to stop it.

"Has Bangladesh become a route for smuggling? It cannot be. This is shameful for the nation," said Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, chairman of parliamentary standing committee on the finance ministry, at a discussion organised to mark International Customs Day yesterday.

The customs department seized 608 kilograms of gold in the last one year.

Razzaque said as many as 6,000 kilograms of gold might be smuggled in the period.

Mere seizure was not a great job. "We have to stop it altogether," he said.