Another incident of bus robbery occurred on the Dhaka-Tangail-Jamuna Bridge highway as a group of robbers took control of a bus and looted valuables and cash money from the passengers between Tuesday night and early Wednesday.
Some of the passengers said that female passengers of the bus were sexually harassed during the robbery that continued for about six hours until 5:30am on Wednesday.
The robbery incident was reported over three months after a bus robbery on the same highway on February 17.
The victims and staff of the bus said that the bus of Al Imran Paribahan left the capital鈥檚 Abdullahpur area for Rangpur at about 8:00pm on Tuesday.
The bus driver鈥檚 assistant, Atiqur Rahman, said that some passengers got on the bus from Narsinghpur, Baipail and Ashulia in Savar on their way to Rangpur.
The bus, carrying 45 passengers, including at least 10 women, crossed Elenga under Kalihati upazila in Tangail at about 11:30pm, he said.
He said that eight or 10 robbers who were in the bus in the guise of passengers took control of the bus as they reached the eastern side of Jamuna Bridge.
The robbers then blindfolded the passengers and the bus driver, and started driving back towards Dhaka, Atiqur said.
He said that the robbers searched each of the passengers and looted mobile phones, money in cash, gold, and other valuables, he added.
鈥極ne of the robbers drove the bus to and from Tangail and Chandra-Ashulia four or five times until 5:30am on Wednesday when they left the bus in the Shibpur area of the Tangail city bypass road,鈥� bus driver Abed Ali said.
One of the bus passengers, Jewel Mia of Adamdighi in Bogura, said that the female passengers were harassed sexually when the robbers had been searching them.
Tangail Sadar police station officer-in-charge Tanbir Ahmed said that the process of filing a case was underway and the police started working to identify the robbers.
