Seven members of the Detective Branch (DB) of police have been suspended for allegedly extorting Tk400,000 from a businessman after threatening to kill him in a crossfire.
“Dhaka district police Superintendent of Police (SP) Maruf Hossain has issued the suspension on Thursday (Jan 30),” said Dhaka South DB police OC Md Nazrul Islam.
The suspended police personnel include Sub-Inspector (SI) Md Farhad Ali, Sub-Inspector (SI) Syed Mahmudul Islam, and five other constables, he said.
“SI Ali has recently joined the station. He doesn’t know anyone here [in Dhaka]. SI Ali or other law enforcers didn’t report anything about arresting anyone to me,” said OC Islam.
“As the complaint has been proved during the initial investigation, seven police members have been suspended,” he added.
According to sources at the police headquarters, the suspended detectives apprehended the businessman from near the Alam Market of Keraniganj on Wednesday (Jan 29), and demanded the money while intimidating to kill him in a crossfire.
According to Sohel, he was then taken into a white microbus, which was missing a vehicle registration number.
At one point, the individuals claiming to be police detectives demanded Tk1 million and threatened Sohel of "killing him in a crossfire" or imprisoning him with false cases, stated the complaint filed by the victim.
The same day, around 11:30pm, family members of Sohel paid TK400,000 as a ransom to the detectives, they again threatened that his whole family will be killed or jailed under false cases if they tell anyone about what happened, the complaint added.