Forces OC, cops to take off uniforms, 30 injured in clashes over robbery
At least 30 people were injured as several thousand villagers besieged two police stations and set a police station and a vehicle on fire in Birganj and Kaharol upazilas of Dinajpur on Tuesday.
Four police personnel were injured in a mass beating and at least 25 villagers were injured when police fired rubber bullets to disperse the mob that besieged the police stations in protest against an overnight robbery committed allegedly by policemen.
Members of Border Guard Bangladesh from Thakurgaon and Dinajpur rushed to Ghashaiara village in Kaharol in the afternoon and rescued 15 policemen who were kept confined by the angry mob in the house where the robbery took place. The villagers set the policemen free after the authorities assured them that action would be taken against the policemen concerned.
The situation was brought under control after six police personnel, including the officer-in-charge of Birganj police station, Aktaruzzaman Prodhan, took their uniforms off and they were closed.
The police authorities withdrew all staff of the two police stations, including the officers-in-charge, sub-inspectors and assistant sub-inspectors. The district administration has formed a four-member probe body to investigate the incidents.
‘Locals alleged that police were involved in the robbery which I cannot confirm at the moment. But we have taken the allegation seriously,’ Dinajpur deputy commission Jamal Uddin told New Age. The DC said that he had heard that masked people had committed the robbery and their identities were not clear.
According to the villagers, six to seven people in a microbus went to the house of Rajendra Nath Devnath at Ghashaiara village in Kaharol at around 1:30am. They broke open the front door and barged into house, they said.
The robbers looted cash, gold ornaments and mobile phones and beat up some residents of the house. Neighbours encircled the house after its residents
cried out for help. But the robbers hurled crude bombs and fled the scene. The local chased them and blocked the highway at Boleya Bazaar in Birganj upazila. The villagers caught five people at Boleya Bazaar suspecting them as robbers though they identified themselves as police personnel of Birganj police station. The angry mob beat them up and confined them to a room.
The injured policemen are sub-inspectors Sukumar and Tajul and assistant sub-inspector Shajahan of Birganj police station.
Locals chased the law enforcers when they went to the spot to free their colleagues from confinement. The mob set two pick-up vans of police on fire. Later in the morning Kaharol police went there to rescue their colleagues. But locals refused to set them free prompting the police to fire rubber bullets. The villagers retaliated by hurling stones.
People from other villages of Birganj and Kaharol took out processions and gathered in front of Rajendra’s house and besieged Birganj and Kaharol police stations. Police fired at least 100 rubber bullets to disperse the mob.
The angry locals attacked Birganj police station and set fire to it at around 1:30pm. They also burnt three motorcycles there.
The villagers shouted slogans against the OC of Birganj accusing him of being the ‘mastermind’ behind all robberies in the area and demanding that he should be handed over to the locals for trial in the ‘people’s court’.
‘Locals detained and torched a microbus carrying police in plain clothes suspecting them as robbers,’ Kaharol’s Dabur union chairman Ilias Hossain told reporters.
Two BGB teams along with two magistrates went to the spot at Kaharol at around 3:00pm and secured the release of the detained police personnel.
Parimal Chandra Rai, a businessman of Boleya Bazaar, said, ‘It is an outburst of the locals against continuous harassment of people by the police and frequent robberies in the area.’
Courtesy of New Age
