Top-listed criminals Subrata Bain and Molla Masud have been arrested by the Bangladesh Army from Kushtia on Tuesday.
"We have heard about the arrest of two people, but the army has not told us anything yet," Kushtia Model Police Station Officer-in-Charge Mosharraf Hossain said.
However, a source from the Bangladesh Army said that further details of the arrests will be disclosed at a briefing at 5pm.
According to locals, around 8am, a military team from Dhaka conducted a raid at a house in the Kalishankarpur area. Six military vehicles, including a black microbus, were seen surrounding the house around 5am.
After a three-hour long operation, they entered the building and detained the two fugitives.
The house in question, a three-storey building owned by Mir Mohiuddin, is known to host student lodgers on its upper floors. According to the tenants, a local man rented the ground floor about five months ago and recently brought in a bearded man as a "guest," who kept a very low profile.
The rise of Subrata Bain
Subrata Bain, listed on Interpol's Red Notice, rose to infamy in the 1990s as a dominant figure in Dhaka's underworld, often associated with controlling tenders and extortion. His criminal operations frequently led to violent clashes and numerous murders.
According to multiple sources within the law enforcement community, Subrata Bain's criminal rise began in the 1990s in Dhaka's Moghbazar area. He was the leader of the feared "Seven Star Group" and was responsible for at least 30 murder cases.
He fled to India in 2001 after the then BNP-Jamaat government listed him among 23 most-wanted criminals, placing a bounty on his head. He was later arrested and jailed in Kolkata.
After escaping a Nepalese prison through a tunnel, he returned to Kolkata where he was again arrested and held until his recent transfer back to Bangladesh via a secret "pushback" operation two and a half years ago.
Since his alleged release from a secret detention facility prior to the fall of the Awami League government in August 2024, Bain reportedly reassembled his network around the Bishal Centre in Moghbazar, resumed extortion operations, and acquired illegal firearms — including some believed to have been looted from police stations.
He is said to have formed alliances with other criminals, including Molla Masud and "Sweden Aslam," to regain control over key commercial areas of Dhaka.
Who is Molla Masud?
Molla Masud, also listed among the 23 most-wanted criminals in 2001, was active in areas like Motijheel and Gopibagh.
Masud fled to India in the early 2000s and assumed a new identity as "Abu Rasel Md Masud." He married an Indian woman named Rizia Sultana and lived there until his recent return.
On 8 February 2015, Masud was arrested in connection with a case under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act filed with Barrackpore Police Station in India's West Bengal.
