Police have arrested three people suspecting their involvement in the mugging of two Japanese tourists in Dhaka. Two of the suspects spent most of the stolen cash on Cox's Bazar tour, police said on Friday after arresting them on Thursday night. The arrestees have been identified as Khairul Islam Swapan, 28, Jihadul Islam Mamun, 19, and Md Abu Rasel Pratya, 22. The Japanese visitors checked in at Hotel Nandini located in the capital’s Shukrabad on Apr 24.
They went to visit Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in Rayer Bazar around 8:30 that night and were robbed when they went to the adjacent graveyard. The robbers took their passports, 150,000 Japanese yen, Tk 28,000, two iPhones, two credit cards, and a driving licence, said Azimul Haque, a deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Both the Japanese nationals returned to the hotel after the incident. Tarek Ahmed, the hotel manager, said they started a case with Mohammadpur police the following morning.
Police checked video footage from the nearby CCTV cameras and, on Thursday, arrested Swapan from the graveyard, said Azimul.
Two police officers were sent to Cox's Bazar after Swapan revealed the location of the two other suspects. But they travelled to Sitakunda, from where they were arrested.
Azimul said they recovered an iPhone, 30,000 Japanese yen and a passport from them.
“Upon arriving at Cox's Bazar, they spent all of the stolen money, which included roughly half of the Japanese yen that they had converted into Bangladeshi taka.”
According to him, all three of the arrested suspects are professional muggers and one of them had three cases against him.