TURA: A group of Bangladeshi criminals crossed over into neighbouring Assam’s Mankachar region to avoid detection before entering the border region of Dalu in West Garo Hills to commit a major robbery from the premises of the block development office during the early morning hours of Monday.
As many as 10-15 criminals armed with daos (machete) and lethal weapons entered the Dalu block office premises and targeted the official quarters of gram sevak Sanjib Boro shortly after 2 am.
The criminals, who were a mixed group of Bangladeshi and Indian nationals, broke open the door of the house, attacked the inmates and after tying up the victims looted the house of its belongings. They took away nine mobile handsets, an expensive tablet phone, Rs 30,000 in hard cash and gold ornaments valued in several lakhs of rupees.
Shortly after the criminals made their escape the victims broke free and immediately alerted Barengapara police station located a few hundred meters away.
Police swung into action immediately and dispatched armed patrol parties into the night to intercept the escaping criminals which had formed smaller groups to disband.
One of the gangs comprising of three men was caught up on the road to Purakhasia while travelling on foot, less than four hours later. From their possession police recovered four mobile sets including a tablet and cash amounting to Rs 4880/-.
From their interrogation police came to know that the gang was a mixed group of both Bangladeshi and Indian nationals.
The Indian group hailed from Mankachar region of Assam.
Among the three arrested, two belong to Mankachar and were identified as Nasirul Islam of Khesarbitta village under Jhaudanga police station and Abdul Hamid of the same village in Assam.
The arrested Bangladeshi national has been identified as Gudu Miah hailing from Chorpurbari village in Kurigram district of Bangladesh.
The gang had travelled all the way from Mankachar to Dalu on public transport and spent most part of the day hiding in the jungles of nearby Chandabhui awaiting nightfall.
The criminal gang had targeted the gram sevak reportedly because his wife happened to be a coal exporter to Bangladesh.
They also revealed that they were tipped off about the financial aspects of their victim from one of the drivers of a coal supplier who use to dispatch the mineral to the gram sevak’s wife for export.
