RAB recovers 155 tonnes of rice smuggled out of govt warehouse in Chittagong

The Rapid Action Battalion has seized around 155 tonnes of rice that were smuggled out of a government warehouse in Chittagong.

Five men, including Acting Manager Pranayan Chakma of the food warehouse at the port city's Halishahar area, were also arrested during the raids, said RAB-7 Lieutenant Commander Ashekur Rahman.

Two separate raids were conducted in the early hours on Tuesday and later in the afternoon Halishahar and City Gate areas, he told bdnews24.com.

The other four arrestees are truck drivers Shamsul Huda, Md Mizan, Shafi Alam and Md Osman.

“At first, we stopped four trucks at Naya Bazar Biswa Road’s Hakkani Petrol Pump area at Halishahar and found 1,152 sacks of rice taken from the government warehouse.”

After seeing the food directorate’s name printed on the sacks, RAB arrested warehouse manager Chakma at dawn and interrogated him.

The RAB official said Chakma then told them about a private warehouse at City Gate’s Kabir Colony where another raid seized 2,000 more sacks of rice.

Three more trucks were impounded from there when sacks of rice were being unloaded from them, he said. “We seized 846 sacks from the trucks and 1,098 sacks smuggled in earlier from inside the depot.”

In total, 3,096 sacks were carrying 155 tonnes of rice, added the RAB official.

He also said that the food directorate confirmed them that those sacks were indeed smuggled from the government warehouse.

The elite force was still trying to arrest the government warehouse’s Assistant Manager Fakhrul Alam, who was also involved in the smuggling along with Pranayan Chakma.