Furnace oil worth Tk 3 cr looted from Munshiganj, recovered in Sirajganj
Munshiganj Correspondent
The river police have recovered furnace oil worth Tk 3 crore that was looted from an oil-carrying vessel in Munshiganj.
The recovery was made seven days later in the Chouhali area of Sirajganj. During the operation, a bulkhead used to transport the stolen oil was seized, and five suspects were arrested.
The operation was conducted on Friday afternoon at Bhuter Mor Naval Ghat in the Charsalimabad area of the Jamuna River.
The robbery occurred early on January 10, when six crew members of the oil tanker OT Bin Zaman-1 were held hostage at the confluence of the Dhaleshwari and Shitalakkhya rivers in Munshiganj. The robbers made away with 350 metric tons of furnace oil.
The arrested individuals are: Suman Sheikh,
Riaz Khan, Mohammad Ferdous, Islam Bepari,
Amzad Hossain Topu.
The operation was led by Additional DIG of the Narayanganj River Police, Al-Mamun Hossain. Other participants included Tangail River Police Superintendent Sohel Rana, Chouhali Naval Outpost OC Arif Hossain, and Munshiganj Police Station SI Imran Hasan.
OC Arif Hossain explained that the robbers had transferred the 350 metric tons of furnace oil into a sand-laden bulkhead after taking the crew of OT Bin Zaman-1 hostage. Following the incident, Fazle Khoda, Manager (Operations) of Kingfisher Shipping Lines—the vessel's owning company—filed a case at Munshiganj Sadar Police Station on January 11.
During the operation, the police seized 260 metric tons of furnace oil from the bulkhead and arrested five suspects. The recovered oil is valued at approximately Tk 3 crore. Local residents reported that the bulkhead had been docked at Bhuter Mor Naval Ghat for two days before the raid.
Superintendent of River Police for the Tangail region, Sohel Rana said , the OT Bin Zaman-1 was en route to Summit Power Plant in Kodda, Tongi, when it fell victim to the robbery. Since the incident, river police had been conducting continuous operations.
The stolen oil and bulkhead were finally located in the Chouhali area of the Jamuna River seven days later.
