BNP-Jamaat suspected behind huge cache of firearms found in Dhaka, police say

A huge amount of firearms found in a canal in Dhaka is ‘new and unused’, say police, hinting that the BNP and the Jamaat might be behind it.

“This is not the handiwork of regular criminals,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police chief Asaduzzaman Miah said at a media briefing on Monday.

He claimed that the stockpile of arms involved people from abroad, too, and that the Detective Branch had been tasked to handle the investigation.

“We suspect those involved in killing women and children in 2015 and want to tarnish the country’s image globally have brought in these firearms,” said DMP Commissioner Miah.

DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah

The government has been blaming the BNP-Jamaat alliance, which sat out from the 2014 national elections, for arson and firebombing across Bangladesh in early 2015.

The victims of those incidents include women and children.

On Saturday, seven bags full of arms and ammunition were found in the shallow waters of the Diabarhi canal in capital’s Uttara.

The haul included 97 pistols, 462 magazines, 1,060 bullets and 10 bayonets and 104 dices for making bullets.  A box containing 32 magazines for firearms was found in the canal the next day.

The DMP chief said the guns were ‘unused and unmarked’. “There are no serial numbers on the guns or even where it was made.”

More on Dhaka arms haul

Huge cache of arms, ammunition found

Box full of magazines found in canal