bdnews24.com :Sixteen bars of smuggled gold, worth approximately Tk 8 million, have reportedly vanished from police custody. The Anti-Corruption Commission is probing how it happened.”It is still under investigation, so there is not much we can say now,” said ACC Commissioner M Shahabuddin.”But our investigation has found that the 16 gold bars should be in police custody and nowhere else.”Rampura Police seized 235 gold bars on Mar 13 from a car abandoned at Dhaka’s Banasree after a specific tip-off.Three days later, the policemen told reporters they found 70 gold bars and also exhibited the haul.Detective Branch began investigating the policemen who were involved in the gold’s seizure from Mar 18 after the inconsistency in police statements was widely reported in the media.Former SI Monjurul Islam, Constables Akash Chowdhury and Wahidul Islam, who were involved in the seizure after being tipped off by source Mahfuzul Alam Rony, are currently in prison. The DB raided their homes on Mar 25 and found 149 gold bars.The number of gold bars seized could now be put to 219, taking into account the 70 initially exhibited by Rampura Police. But there were 235 gold bars in the car during the police seizure, said its driver Samir Biswas and the golds’ carrier Jahid Hossain, during interrogation after their arrests.Therefore, 16 bars are still not accounted for.
