4 accused arrested after tracking BCL leader’s phone

Six accused of gang-rape in Sylhet MC College hostel--(From L-R) Saifur Rahman, Tarequl Islam, Shah Mahbubur Rahman alias Rony, Arjun Laskar, Rabiul Islam, and Mahfuzur Rahman alias MasumCollected

The six accused named in the case of gang raping a woman at the MC College dormitory were untraceable until about 38 hours after the incident was revealed.

In the next 16 hours, four including the prime accused were detained.

Their location was traced by tracking the phone of a BCL (Bangladesh Chhatra League) leader of MC College, according to a senior police official involved in drives to detain the accused.

The law enforcement official sought anonymity to say it was ‘phone call magic’ behind a coordinated drive to successfully detain the four.

According to the police, a team of law enforcers including policemen and detectives have been working on to catch two more accused and three unidentified persons named in the case statement.

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The police officer seeking anonymity told Prothom Alo that all the details about those involved in the gang-rape were revealed by Friday night. The pictures of the accused also spread on social media.

A case was filed in connection with the incident on Saturday morning. Numerous calls were made to the mobile phone of a BCL leader between 8:00am and 11:00am Saturday that raised suspicions among the law enforcement, said the police officer.

The phone was tracked and after the locations of the accused were detected, four accused were arrested one after the other, he added.

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Accused Rabiul Hasan, 28, was the last to be arrested from Nabiganj, Habiganj between 9:00 and 10:00pm on Sunday night. After handing him over to Sylhet metropolitan police, additional police superintendent of Habiganj police station Sheikh Selim told Prothom Alo that Rabiul’s location was identified in a joint drive by members of the detective branch police and police department following special orders from the top authorities of police.

Rabiul is a resident of Jagdal village of Dirai, Sunamganj. To avoid the arrest, he went into hiding at a relative’s residence in Niz Agna village in Nabiganj.

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About half an hour prior to Rabiul’s arrest, RAB-9 arrested Shah Mahbubur Rahman aka Rony from Shayestaganj of Habiganj. Media officer of RAB-9, assistant superintendent Obain Rakhine, said their operation was continuing.

Mahbubur Rahman is a resident of Bagunipara village in Habiganj sadar upazila. Earlier, a team of Madhabpur detective police arrested Arjun Laskar, another fugitive accused in the case. Before that, the prime accused Saifur Rahman was arrested from Chhatak, Sunamganj. He was arrested on his way to Doara Bazar from Kheyaghat.