Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested 13 people accused in a case filed over the recovery of counterfeit TSP fertilizers brought from Chattogram for a gowdown in Bogura on Thursday night.
The elite force rounded them up from the buffer warehouse of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) in Tinmatha area of the Bogura town.
The arrestees are identified as Nur Hossain, Abul Bashar, Jasim, Sohail, Asadul, Babu, Abdul Awal, Tarek, Shakil, another Shakil, Hanif, Jahangir Alam and Shah Alam. They are the drivers and helpers of the trucks that carried the fertilizer.
Md Towhidul Mobin Khan, squadron leader of Rab-12, disclosed the news of the arrest at a press conference at his office on Friday.
He said 17 trucks of M/S MHR Corporation, which was appointed to carry the fertilizers to Buffer godown of the BCIC in Bogura from Chattogram, started their journey from the port city on August 27.
Drivers and helpers of seven trucks unloaded real fertilizers from their vehicles and replaced them with counterfeit ones during a stopover in Savar area of Dhaka, the Rab officer said.
The drivers and helpers of the seven trucks numbering 13 people were arrested from the Buffer godown on the arrival of the test report on Thursday night, he said.
Mentionable, on information the warehouse authorities seized 238 metric tonnes (MT) of TSP fertilizer suspecting counterfeit in front of the godown on August 29,
Read: 238 MT of TSP fertilizers seized on suspicion of being counterfeit
Reacting to the incident, the authority of TSP fertilizer factory in Chattogram formed a three member probe committee headed by its Manager (Admin) Mazharul Islam and asked for a report within three working days.
The probe body collected samples from the all trucks and sent them to the two respective labs for experiment.
Md Shahidul Islam, chief scientific officer of Rajshahi Soil Resource Development Institute, said they found evidence of counterfeit fertilizers in the samples collected from seven out of the 17 trucks.
Acting on the test report, TSP fertilizer factory Officer Mazharul filed the case against 14 people including the M/S MHR Corporation’s owner Moazzem Hossain at the local police station.
Selim Reza, Officer-in-charge of Bogura Sadar Police Station, said efforts are on to nab the main accused Moazzem.