46 jobseekers rescued from confinement by fraudsters

Detectives rescued 46 jobseekers who were kept in confinement by a gang of fraudsters, and arrested four members of the gang, including two retired staff of the Air Force, in the capital's Mirpur area on Monday night.

The arrestees are retired warrant officer Md Siddiqur Rahman and retired civil staff Johirul Islam and their associates -- Swapan Hossain and Enamul Haque Liton.

The gang lured in unemployed youths with promises of jobs in the Air Force and kept them confined to a flat in Mirpur. They also forced the victims to sign blank non-judicial stamps and marriage certificates, said Sheikh Nazmul Alam, deputy commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, at a press conference yesterday.    

The gang forced the victims to sign the certificates to implicate them in women repression cases if they did not pay amounts ranging from Tk 3 lakh to Tk 6 lakh, said the detectives.

The arrests were made at a flat in Mirpur DOHS area on a tip-off. They also rescued the youths who were kept in confinement for 12 days, Nazmul said. Detectives also recovered 50 fake seals of different professionals, including college lecturers and school headmasters, gazetted government officers, government physicians, and union parishad chairmen, 46 non-judicial stamps of Tk 100 denomination each, 46 fake marriage certificates, and 60 job application forms of the defence ministry.  The gang had already taken Tk 5,000 to Tk 10,000 from some of the victims.