RAB halts interrogating Papia as she complains of fever

The Rapid Action Battalion has deferred the interrogation of expelled Jubo Mohila League leader Shamima Noor Papia after she came down with a fever while in remand amid a novel coronavirus outbreak.

She has been sent to Kashimpur Jail in line with a court order but will be brought back in for questioning once the situation improves, said RAB-1 chief Lt Col Shafiullah Bulbul.

“She caught fever from her third day in remand, but she tested negative for the coronavirus infection. We later sent her to jail,” he told bdnews24.com.

The RAB arrested Papia, her husband Mofizur Rahman alias Sumon Chowdhury and their two associates, Sabbir Khandaker and Sheikh Tayeba Noor, and seized passports and counterfeit notes found on them at Shahjalal International Airport on Feb 22.

She was initially remanded for 15 days in three cases related to counterfeit notes, illegal arms and liquor. The RAB was later given another 15 days to grill her in these cases at the end of the first remand.

A Dhaka court subsequently approved the elite police unit’s request to send Papia to jail, said Sub Inspector Mahmudur Rahman, general registration officer of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.

“The court order was issued on Mar 20 and she was sent to Kashimpur Jail accordingly,” said SI Mahmudur.

In drives on Papia’s homes in Dhaka and Narsingdi on Feb 23, the RAB found huge wealth without a known source besides a pistol and five bottles of foreign liquor.

She and her husband have made the fortunes through “trading in drugs and arms, extortion, recruitment fraud and other sorts of embezzlement”, according to the RAB.

The couple ran a gang styled “Q & C” in Narsingdi for extortion, drugs business and maintain control, the RAB said.

Forcing women into prostitution is another source of their income, a RAB official said.

Papia always kept a presidential suite booked at the Westin hotel in Dhaka and had her customers controlled by some young women who regularly stayed at the hotel as well, he added.

The authorities initiated a case against the four at Airport Police Station over the seizure of the counterfeit currencies.

On Mar 21, the Criminal Investigation Department filed another case against six people, including Papia and her husband, under the Money Laundering Prevention Act with the Gulshan Police Station.