They rob Japanese tourists and go on a trip

Four days ago, two Japanese tourists were mugged at Rayer Bazar Bodhyo Bhumi area in Dhaka’s Mohammadpur.

Police have arrested three suspects in connection with the incident. Police said two of them went on a leisure trip after the incident of mugging.

This was disclosed in a press conference held at the police’s Tejgaon division deputy commissioners office in Shyamoli, Friday afternoon.

It was said in the press conference two Japanese tourists were mugged last Monday night. Three muggers snatched away 153,000 (1.53 lakh) yen, Tk 28,000, two iPhones, passports and other items from them.

After distributing the money and other items, two of the muggers went on a leisure trip to Cox's Bazar. They also went to Sitakunda in Chattogram.

Tejgaon division DC HM Azimul Haque said the muggers were identified reviewing footages of nearby closed circuit cameras surrounding the spot of the incident as well as with the help of information technology.

All three of them - Khairul Islam (Swapan), Jihadul Islam (Mamun) and Abu Rasel (Prottoy) were arrested later.

Khairul was arrested first from Boatghat area of Mohammadpur on Thursday, Azimul Haque added.

Based on information given by him, the identity cards, driving licenses, health cards, two credit cards and a passport belonging to those two Japanese tourists were recovered from a field near the Shutki Arat (dried fish market) in Rayer Bazar.

Meanwhile, Jihadul and Rasel were arrested from Sitakunda later. And an iPhone, 30,000 yen, a portable hotspot and a Bluetooth device have been recovered from them.

One of those two Japanese tourists was present at the press conference. The Japanese citizen said that while he was a victim of mugging, he was very happy for the robbers being arrested. He even thanked the police for taking quick action.

According to the police, those two Japanese citizens came to visit Bangladesh on 21 April. They checked in a hotel at Shukraabad area on 24 April.

On the same day at around 8:30pm, they went to visit the Rayer Bazar Bodhyo Bhumi memorial and graveyard. It was around 9:00pm, when those tourists got lost and couldn’t find their way out of there.

At that time, three youths took them to an isolated place by leading them on the wrong way. They later snatched everything from them by threatening them with weapons. Both the victims then returned to the hotel and shared the incident with the hotel manager on the next day.

Additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of police in Mohammadpur region Mrityunjoy Dey told Prothom Alo that the hotel manager reported the mugging to police at Mohammadpur police station.

In this incident, the manager filed a case being the plaintiff. After investigating the incident, the muggers have been arrested. As per the information found initially, all three of the arrestees are professional muggers.