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Published : 09 Mar 2014, 02:45 PM
Thirteen people have so far been detained after Saturday’s heist.
The bank’s Branch Manager Md Shamsuddin Sharif and six others were detained on Sunday morning for interrogation, said Adamdighi Police Station OC Nazrul Islam.
However, Shamsuddin and cashier Azharul Islam, detained on Saturday, were sent back to office after interrogation with police escort around 11am, the OC said.
They were to be brought back for interrogation once they finished their office work, Islam said.
Miscreants had dug an underground tunnel to the bank’s vault from a furniture shop situated next to the bank in the Adamdighi bus stand area.
The other detainees are security guards ‘Milion’, Purna Chandra, former guard Ruhul Amin, owner of the furniture shop Ashraful Islam, his employees Shahinul Islam, Nazrul Islam, Shafiqul Islam, welders Abdul Latif, ‘Alam’, Md Mridul and Abdul Wahed.
Shamsuddin on Saturday had said, “All branches of the bank were open on Saturday for transactions of the candidates of reserved women seat in Parliament. There were no other transactions on that day (on Saturday).”
He found the vault had been broken when he opened the bank around 4pm on Saturday after closing of business on Thursday. “Then I informed the bank authorities and police right away.”
The branch manager said there was more than Tk 3.2 million in the vault. “We put the money in the vault before we closed the bank on Thursday for the weekend.”
Later, Tk 172,184 was found around the vault and the tunnel.
Police had earlier detained Azharul, Milion, Purna, Ashraful and one of his employees in connection with the heist.
OC Nazrul Islam said Sonali Bank Deputy General Manager Abdus Samad had filed a case on Saturday night without mentioning any name.
According to case details, Tk 3 million out of over Tk 3.2 million went missing from the bank’s vault.
On Jan 26, another group of miscreants had made off with Tk 169 million from the vault of the Sonali Bank branch in Kishoreganj’s Rathkhola after tunnelling their way into it from an abandoned room of a neighbouring house.
However, two days later, RAB nabbed two robbers including the ringleader Sohel alias Habib with Tk 161.90 million of the stolen cash.
2 probe committees formed
Meanwhile, Sonali Bank authorities have formed two committees to investigate the heist.
The bank’s Rajshahi zone General Manager ATM Afzal Hossain is heading a four-member team and Bangladesh Bank’s Deputy General Manager Murtaza Ali the other three-strong committee.
The Adamdighi branch stopped its operations until 12 pm on Sunday.
OC Nazrul Islam said RAB along with police are conducting raids to recover the stolen money.
Khurshid Alam, Additional Deputy Inspector General of Police (Rajshahi range), visited the spot around 11am Sunday.
He also interrogated those detained at the police station.
Alam said the robbery had been possible because of the negligence of the branch authorities.
He hoped the masterminds would be nabbed soon and the stolen money recovered.
