Buyer of stolen PMO red telephone cable sent to jail
The order was issued today by Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Kamal Uddin following a petition filed by police.
A Dhaka court has ordered the imprisonment of Md Mahbub Hasan, the buyer of copper cables stolen from the Prime Minister's Office's red telephone connection at the Secretariat, in connection with a theft case.
The order was issued today (12 June) by Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Kamal Uddin following a petition filed by police, according to a court source.
Earlier, the investigating officer of the case, Sub-Inspector Injamul Hossain of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, produced the accused before the court and sought an order to keep him in jail.
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According to the case statement, between 10am on 22 May and 10am on 1 June, unidentified individuals stole BTCL copper cables from the rooftops of Old Buildings 1, 2 and 3 inside the Secretariat. The stolen government-owned cable measured approximately 110 metres in length and had an estimated market value of Tk1,05,000.
Following the incident, Md Faisal Kabir, junior assistant manager (technical) of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), filed a theft case with Shahbagh Police Station.
After the case was filed, police reviewed CCTV footage and analysed digital evidence, leading to the arrest of two suspects, outsourcing employees Ranjan Chandra, 26, and Rizakul Islam, from the Secretariat area on 4 June. The following day, a court granted police five days to interrogate them in remand.
During preliminary questioning, Ranjan confessed to the theft and told investigators that he had extracted the copper from the stolen cables and sold it to a scrap shop named "Messrs Bhai Bhai Traders" in front of Amar Ekushey Hall of Dhaka University.
Based on information provided by Ranjan, police arrested Md Mahbub Hasan, 34, the buyer of the stolen materials.
Investigators said Mahbub admitted to purchasing the stolen copper cables during questioning but denied knowing their current whereabouts.
The investigating officer told the court that the accused should remain in custody for the sake of the ongoing investigation.
