Police arrested seven people including a ward councillor of Gazipur city in connection with sabotage activities of cutting the railway line in Bankharia area of Sreepur upazila of Gazipur district.
The arrestees were identified as Hasan Ajmal Bhuiyan, 50, No. 28 ward councillor of Gazipur City Corporation, Sohel Rana, 38, Jannatul Islam, 23, Mehedi Hasan, 25, Zulkarnain Ashrafi alias Hridoy, 35, Shahanur Alam, 53, and Saidul Islam, 32. Gazipur Metropolitan
Police (GMP) Commissioner Md Mahbub Alam, quoting the interrogation of those arrested in the incident, said that under the pressure of the party’s high-level leaders and to create a stir at home and abroad, sabotage was planned at the house of Ajmal Bhuiyan. According to that plan, eight people cut some parts of the railway line.
He said various teams of Gazipur Ward councillor
Detective Brunch conducted raids in different parts of the country, including Gazipur, and arrested Jannatul Islam and Mehedi Hasan of the gang. Later, others were arrested based on the information obtained from them during an interrogation.
All of them involved in the sabotage were current and former leaders and activists of BNP and its front organisations, said the GMP Commissioner.
Ajmal Bhuiyan is the former president of Gazipur Sadar Thana BNP. He was expelled from BNP for life for taking part in the last city elections, going beyond the party decision.
Among the arrested, Jannatul Islam and Mehedi Hasan admitted that eight people led by Masum, organising secretary of Gazipur metropolitan Chhatra Dal and Kazi Azimuddin College Chhatra Dal Convener Toha were directly involved in this incident.
The main planner and financier of the incident is councillor Hasan Ajmal Bhuiyan.
According to police, Jannatul and Mehdi are workers of BNP. Sohel Rana is the former general secretary of Kazi Azim Uddin Government College Chhatra Dal of Gazipur. Shahanur is the BNP president of Ward No. 28 of Gazipur City Corporation, Hriday was the former general secretary of Ward No. 2 and Saidul was former vice president of Gazipur Sadar Thana Chhatra Dal.
In the press conference, GMP Commissioner Mahbub Alam said that Jannatul Islam was first arrested on the basis of secret information and using information technology.
On questioning them, it was revealed that on the evening of December 12, they hired a microbus saying that they were going to Dhaka from Konabari. However, instead of going to Dhaka, they kept roaming in different places of Gazipur.
The police commissioner said, on the way, they picked up several people from different places in the microbus. Among them, they took railway line cutting equipment from Ibn Sinha Toha’s house in Jor Pukurpar area under Gazipur Sadar Police Station and two gas cylinders from the ‘Bamboo Bagan Restaurant’ rented by Usman Gani located in Dakshin Salna. Then they passed the time wandering around in different alleys in the city of Gazipur.
Around 12:30 am, they left the microbus near the forest at a distance of 4-5 km from the incident site and went to Bankharia railway bridge with the equipment. They went there and observed the situation together and took the opportunity to cut the 20 feet railway line between 3:00am and 4:00am.
The GMP Commissioner also said that after the incident, they left for Dhaka with the rented microbus. Four people got down from the microbus near Dhaka Medical College Hospital and the rest went to Mirpur. They paid the microbus fare by taking money from another person through MFS service.
Referring to the interrogation of the arrested persons, GMP Commissioner Mahbub Alam said that before the sabotage, meetings were held at various places including the house of Ward Councilor and former BNP leader Ajmal Bhuiyan. In these meetings it is discussed that there is pressure from the top of the party to do something big. If a big event happens, there will be a stir in the country and abroad. As a result, they plan to sabotage the railway line.
On December 13, the rail line was cut and as a result, seven bogies of a Dhaka bound Mohonganj Express derailed leaving one dead and 10 others were injured in this subversive activity.