The police on Friday confirmed that they had recovered 190 bharis of gold and arrested four people, including a woman over a recent theft in a jewellery shop at Malibagh in Dhaka city.
Detective Branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police additional commissioner Md Shafiqul Islam revealed the information at a press briefing at the DMP Media Centre in the morning.
He said that the DB police through drives in the past 72 hours in different districts, including Chattogram, Barishal, Narayanganj and Dhaka, recovered about 190 bharis of gold, 93.5 grams of silver, Tk 1,77,200 in cash and arrested four people with a motorcycle over the October 9 theft.
The arrestees are Shahin Matabbar, 46, Nurul Islam, 33, Anita Roy, 31, and Uttam Chandra Sur, 49.
The looting happened on October 9 at Shampa Jewellers housed in Fortune Shopping Mall in front of Mouchak Market at Malibagh.
According to the police, Shahin was arrested first from Chattogram at about 12:00 noon Thursday.
He confessed to his involvement in the theft during primary questioning.
Based on the information given by Shahin, the police recovered about 121.07 bharis of gold from his house, while 52.81 bharis of gold was recovered from Soishob Roy Sumon鈥檚 wife Anita in Barishal on the same day.
Sumon went into hiding while the police arrested his wife on Thursday evening.
Nurul was arrested from Narayanganj and Uttam from Old Dhaka early Friday and the rest of the gold, silver, money and the motorcycle were recovered from them.
The DB chief said that they were a gang of professional thieves who were also involved in looting gold in Chattogram Karnaphuli Market in 2021.
A case was filed with Ramna police station over the heist after which the DB police began shadow investigation discovering that the theft had been planned for three months during when hammers, shovels and other tools to be used in the looting were stored behind the market, he described.
On the day of the theft, accused Sumon entered the market and tied a thread with the window and also left burqas in the bathroom for fellow gang members to hide themselves in, the police said.
Tying a rope to the previously tied thread, they climbed up, cut the grille and entered the bathroom and by breaking its door they got into Fortune Shopping Mall and then broke into Shampa Jewellers.
All the time of their activity they wore hid themselves in the burqas and after stealing from Shampa Jewellers left using the same route, the DB chief said.
One person involved in the looting is yet to be arrested, said DB chief Md Shafiqul Islam, adding that two of the arrestees were directly involved in the looting.
Legal action against the arrested ones was under way, he also said.
On October 9, two thieves wearing burqas allegedly looted about 500 bharis of gold from Shampa Jewellers, according to shop owner Achintyo Kumar Biswas.