2 Bangladeshis among 8 held for daring Metro-site robbery

KOLKATA: At least two of the eight persons arrested on Saturday for involvement in extortion and loot at the city’s biggest ongoing infrastructure project have turned out to be from Bangladesh. The police have not ruled out the possibility of some of the other six, too, turning out to be Bangladeshi nationals staying here on forged documents.
The weekend arrests came less than a week after the first four arrests for the dacoity at the New Town site of the New Garia-Airport Metro project, the longest of the three ongoing Metro projects in Kolkata.Work on this route had stalled previously as well — because of the same problem — but this is the first time that the police have found direct involvement of cross-border criminals in such an important infrastructure project being implemented by government agencies in the city.
Alak Kumar Pan, senior HR manager of IL&FS, the agency in charge of construction at the site, said the involvement of Bangladeshi criminals added another dimension to the problem. “We are really scared to know that such a big gang is behind the robbery, which is a culmination of several small thefts over the past few months. Some people threatened us a fortnight before this incident,” he added.
Saturday’s arrests were based on direct leads provided by the four criminals arrested earlier for the dacoity at the New Town Metro station site near the Financial Hub.
Cops to verify citizenship documents of suspects
The Bangladeshi nationals were identified as Al-Amin Ahmed (22) and Shaheen Biswas (19) from Khulna and Satkhira, respectively. The six others were identified as Farooque Ali Sapui, Anarul Sahaji, Sadir Ali Sardar, Noor Hossain Fakir, Md Toriqul Islam and Rezaul Gazi, all between 19 and 23.
“The leads we got said most of the group’s members were from Bangladesh but the seized documents showed that only two were Bangladeshi nationals. But we are questioning the others and verifying their citizenship documents to find out whether they are forged,” a senior officer of the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said.
“Ahmed and Biswas do not seem to have any criminal record in India. We will grill them over the next few days to understand how they have managed to enter India and how long they have been staying here,” an officer probing the case said.
A gang of 30 armed men arrived at the work site early on August 16, tied one of the security guards to a pole and chased the other away and then drove off with building material worth Rs 5.4 lakh. Four persons, including the gang leader, were the first to be arrested but officials and staff of IL&FS, the agency in charge of construction at the site, were so scared that they wrote to Bidhannagar cops again last Friday, seeking protection.
The construction company initially asked for a permanent police outpost, like the one at the Airport-New Garia terminal station site near Sonarpur, but was told that it would not be possible.