Helping Nepalis to flee: ‘No evidence found against police’

Police could not get any evidence of their involvement in helping 15 Nepalis to flee Fakirerpool Young Men’s Club.

Monirul Islam, spokesperson of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner, today said this at a press conference at the DMP media centre.

“Detective branch of police and members of other agencies have started working but, so far we did not get any evidence that the people, helped the Nepalis to flee the building, are policemen,” Monirul said responding to a question.

Monirul, also additional police commissioner and chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit of DMP, said, “It will be sorrowful if any allegation comes against policemen that they helped them (Nepalis) to flee the spot.”

According to sources in the law enforcement agency, one of the two persons, who was seen in a CCTV footage with a walkie-talkie, is an assistant programmer of an intelligence team while another one is an official of the same team in Ramna zone.

HELPING NEPALIS TO FLEE

The CCTV footage of an apartment building in the capital’s Segunbagicha area showed that 15 Nepalis, who reportedly worked in casinos, fled from the building early Thursday when Rab conducted a crackdown in the casinos at Fakirerpool Young Men’s Club and Dhaka Wanderers Club in Motijheel area.

The six Nepalis were also among them.

The footage showed that three plainclothes men with walkie-talkies entered the building -- “Summit Hasan Lodge” -- around 10:48pm on Wednesday night.

At the entrance, they introduced themselves as policemen and told the security guard to take them where the Nepalis were staying.

The guard, Uzzal, took them to the flat. Uzzal was not allowed inside.

The three left the building around 11:28pm with a bag.

Around 1:46am, 15 Nepalis were seen leaving the building with luggage.

Belayet Hossain, an owner of a flat in the building, said the Nepalis rented the flat on the 5th floor around two months ago for a monthly rent of Tk 40,000.

A Bangladeshi man named Masum introduced himself as a trainer of Mohammedan Sporting Club and helped the Nepalis rent the flat, he said.

“I just work in the club. My NID was used to rent the flat for the Nepali staffers,” Masum said.

When renting the apartments, Masum, however, did not provide any information about Nepali tenants in the tenants’ registration form, police said.

Investigators have found direct or indirect involvement of about 100 foreign nationals, mostly Nepalis, in Bangladesh’s illegal casino business, which is currently facing a crackdown by law enforcement agencies.

They are either partners in the casinos, employees hired to operate the gambling machines or hired to manage the businesses, said police.

Azimul Haque, additional deputy commissioner of police (Ramna Division), visited the building yesterday and told reporters that they would investigate the footage and take action if they found any policemen involved.

The country woke up to this underworld operation when Rab conducted a crackdown on Wednesday, finding Las Vegas style gambling rackets dealing with crores of taka.