Bank Burglary
Manager among 17 held
Seventeen people, including the Sonali Bank’s Kishoreganj branch manager Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan and its 11 employees, were detained until yesterday in connection with the looting of Tk 16.4 crore from the branch.
Police said the detainees were interrogated in the Sadar police station in connection with the looting of the money from the vault of the bank through a tunnel. “We are interrogating 17 people —12 bank officials and five others — to find out their involvement,” Sadar police station Officer-in-Charge Abdul Malek told The Independent.
However, no one has been arrested so far in connection with the incident, he added.
Meanwhile, Deputy General Manager (DGM) Sheikh Amanuallah filed a case with the sadar police yesterday afternoon against some unidentified people.
He said a four-member committee, headed by General Manager Hasan Iqbal, was formed to probe into the burglary. The committee members visited the branch and talked to the people concerned, he added. He further said, “Operation of the bank branch remained suspended yesterday for the sake of investigation. However, it will resume tomorrow (Tuesday).”
Kishoreganj Police Super Anwar Hossain Khan told The Independent that a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank visited the spot and talked to the employees of the branch yesterday.
SM Mahfuzul Haque Nuruzzaman, deputy inspector general of police (Dhaka Range), also visited the looted branch at Isa Khan Road in Rathkhola area of Kishoreganj.
Earlier in the day, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) personnel found masks and caps in the room where the vault was kept.
The CID collected those for DNA test, police said.
Miscreants made away with Tk 16.40 crore by digging a tunnel into the bank’s vault sometime between Friday and Saturday.
Two bank officials on Sunday found the tunnel when they went to the bank’s vault to get money for transactions.
The tunnel was dug to the vault from a nearby building only 20 yards away from the bank. A narrow alley separates the bank and the building.
As the policemen, who were deployed in the barrack located in the basement of the branch to maintain the security of the vault, were utterly clueless about the tunnel, eight policemen were closed following the incident.
New deployment was made for security yesterday.
UNB adds: AKM Fazlul Haque was appointed manager of the branch.
Courtesy of The Independent
