In Cox's Bazar, blackmail, drug consumption, robbery, unethical activities are going on behind the scenes. The tourist police have launched an operation to prevent these crimes and discovered special tunnels. Tourist police also arrested 38 people including spa workers.
Additional Inspector General of Tourist Police Apel Mahmud said that separate raids were conducted in the residential cottage zone and Kalatali Mor area of Cox's Bazar city at midnight on Sunday. Those arrested include 12 men, 21 women and 5 women spa-workers including a spa director. Tourist police said that some criminal gangs are active around a number of residential cottages and spa centers in the tourist zone. Tourists are constantly being blackmailed, robbed and harassed by the gang members. Police are conducting operations to bring criminals to book to ensure smooth travel of tourists.
Residential cottage zone adjacent to Light House area of Cox's Bazar city,where more than two hundred residential cottages have been built for tourists. There have been complaints against the 6/7 cottages without signboards for a long time that tourists are being tricked into blur-mailing, drug consumption, robbery and immoral activities in various ways.
On Sunday midnight, tourist police raided two cottages named 'Dhakar Bari' and 'Shiuli' without signboards and arrested 21 women and 12 men. Several others managed to escape through the secret stairs and tunnels of the two cottages after sensing the raid. At that time, the secret room was found there. Additional Inspector General of Tourist Police, Appel Mahmud, said that offensive pictures and videos were taken and tortured by gang members.
He said, they discovered a special tunnel, through which tourists were locked in another room and extorted by torturing them.
Meanwhile, the tourist police arrested 5 young women including the female director of an unauthorized spa center in a separate raid at the residential hotel named World Beach Resort near Kalatali intersection of Cox's Bazar city on Sunday midnight. Tourist Police Additional DIG Apel Mahmud said that the harassment and blackmailing of tourists was going on behind the spa center in a secret room inside the hotel. And huge sums of money were collected by recording offensive pictures and videos. An organized gang used to kidnap tourists and harass them in various ways. There are more than 36 such spa centers in the city.
About the raid, the employee of the residential hotel World Beach Resort said that the 10-storey hotel is owned by several people. Among them, the flats from the ground floor to the third floor are owned by the landlord and the flats from the fourth floor to the tenth floor are owned by different people. He was not on duty at the hotel during the raid on Sunday night. And the spa center was run by a woman on rent from the land owner. But he does not know what kind of activities are taking place in the spa center.
Additional DIG of Police Apple Mahmud said
There are 36 unauthorized spa centers in Cox's Bazar city and more than two hundred residential cottages in the area adjacent to the light house.
These institutions have been operating for a long time only by obtaining trade licenses from the municipality. And due to various crimes committed in these unregulated institutions, there has been a negative impact on the tourism industry.
He said that action will be taken against these spas by talking to the Deputy Commissioner.
