The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has rescued a university student who was kidnapped in December last year and arrested five people for their alleged involvement in the incident. The arrestees are Md Abdul Malek, 35, suspected mastermind of the gang, victim's driver Samidul Islam, 30, Roni Nabal, 41, Md Russell Mia, 34, and Md Billal Hossain, 24. They were arrested from Sunamganj's Tahirpur upazila and Dhaka's Uttara, said a press release. Fires in Rohingya camp: 3 ARSA members arrested with firearms According to the press release, victim Kazi Hasibur Rahman alias Himel, a resident of Dhaka’s Uttara, was abducted on his way to Sherpur around 9:30an on December 26, 2023. Failing to trace her son, the victim's mother filed a general diary at the capital's Uttara West police station on the same day. On December 28, 2023, law enforcers recovered the victim's car in an abandoned condition in Basan area of Gazipur. Subsequently, the kidnappers demanded Tk 2 crore as ransom from his family. They also tortured Himel and sent video footage to his family. Chamber Judge stays HC’s verdict sentencing five Agrani Bank officials for contempt of court Later, a case was filed following a complaint lodged by the victim's maternal uncle at the capital's Uttara West Police Station on January 6 2024. The victim's mother also complained to RAB to rescue her son. Tipped off, on January 23, the intelligence wing of the RAB headquarters, RAB-1, RAB-9 and RAB-14 conducted an operation in Tahirpur area of Sunamganj and arrested mastermind Malek and driver Samidul Islam. Later, based on the information provided by them, RAB members rescued Himel from Sunamganj's Tahirpur upazila last night and arrested Roni Nabal. Rape case in Uttara: Main suspect, associate arrested The elite force also recovered one foreign pistol, 2 rounds of bullets and 2 walkie-talkie sets from their possession. During the preliminary interrogation, the arrestees admitted their involvement in the crime, it added.

Police have rescued 3 labourers who were kidnapped  from the hilly area of Saraf Bhata union in Rangunia upazila of Chattogram on Sunday night. The rescued labourers are  Md Jafar,22, of Cox’s Bazar, Ejlas Mia,60, son of Shamsul Alam, and Md Bacha,45, son of Md Sobahan, both from Sarf Bhata union in the upazila. Read: Bangladesh heading towards acute crisis: BNP warns A team led by Md Anwar Hossain Shamim, Assistant Superintendent of Police (Rangunia circle) rescued them from the deep forest of Tripura Shundari area after conducting a drive. The farming labourers were kidnapped by some unidentified miscreants around 8 am on Sunday while harvesting paddy in Barakhola area in the union, said Aktar Hossain, owner of the land they were working in. Read: Female UP member ‘raped’ in Rajshahi: 5 held “For the last few days some unknown people were demanding Tk 2 lakh as extortion over phone. They might have kidnapped my workers for money,” he said. ASP Anwar Hossain Shamim said the kidnappers could not be arrested.  

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) have rescued a 35-year-old man from Gazipur and arrested three suspected kidnappers from Bibi Bazar area of Comilla Sadar Upazila on Friday morning.The arrestees are Md. Motahar Hossain, 30, son of Md. Aminul Islam of Gazipur village of Adarsh Sadar upazila, Md. Delwar Hossain, 41, son of late Amir Hossain of Rajmangalpur village of the upazila and Md. Simun, 19, son of Khorshed Alam of Gazipur village.Rab-11 disclosed the matter at a press briefing on Saturday.Mohammad Shakib Hossain, Company Commander of RAB-11, CPC-2, said that victim Md. Ramzan Hossain came from Narayanganj to visit his friend Rakib in Bibi Bazar area of Cumilla on April 11. Read: Rabiul's death in police custody must be probed: GM Quader Rakib's friends Shahin and Rubel were already acquainted with victim Ramzan. Shahin took Ramzan Hossain with him to visit Bibi Bazar on the Bangladesh-India border. They took their Iftar there.After Iftar, Ramzan wanted to leave the place but Shahin alias Star Shahin and along with others kidnapped him and beat him up after tying his hands and feet.  Later they demanded a ransom of Tk 10 lakh from his wife showing torture scene through video phone calls, said Commander Shakib Hossain.Earlier on April 13, Ramzan's wife Liza Begum lodged a complaint in this regard. Read: HC to hear ACC officer Enamul's appeal, stays Tk 80 lakh fineBased on the complaint, a team of Rab-11 conducted a drive in Gazipur area of Jagannathpur union of Sadar upazila and rescued Ramzan after four days.Sensing the presence of law enforcers, the main ringleader of the gang, drug dealer Md. Shahin alias Star Shahin managed to flee the scene.

A gang of young men allegedly kidnapped a couple and their baby from the sea beach in Cox's Bazar on Wednesday afternoon, took them to a desolate place and then to a local hotel where three of them raped the woman for hours. The crime came to light early on Thursday morning when the woman dialled 999 and sought help from police, said an officer of Rab-15, Major Mehedi Hasan. "Already we have identified two of the accused and efforts are on to arrest the culprits." In her police complaint, the 22-year-old woman claimed that she came to Cox's Bazar with her husband and their eight-month-old baby on Wednesday morning and checked into a hotel. Read: Mother-daughter gang raped; 2 arrested In the afternoon, the family went out for a stroll on the sea beach. At Laboni point, the woman's husband had an altercation with one of the accused after he accidentally bumped into the latter. What started as a small argument soon snowballed into a major altercation and the young man called his accomplices to the spot. They kidnapped the family in two auto-rickshaws and took them to a desolate place near the golf club where three of them allegedly violated the woman. The woman's ordeal didn't end there. The family was taken to Zia Guest Inn from the golf club area, where the three accused again took turns to rape her for hours. They released her in the early hours of Thursday and allegedly threatened to kill her family if she narrated her ordeal to anyone.

Negotiations stretched into a fourth day seeking the return of 17 members of a U.S.-based missionary group kidnapped over the weekend by a violent gang that is demanding $1 million ransom per person. The group includes five children whose ages range from 8 months to 15 years, although authorities were not clear whether the ransom amount included them, a top Haitian official said Tuesday. Sixteen of the abductees are Americans and one Canadian. The abduction is one of at least 119 kidnappings recorded in Haiti for the first half of October, according to the Center of Analysis and Research of Human Rights, a local nonprofit group. It said a Haitian driver was abducted along with the missionaries, bringing the total to 18 people taken by the gang. The Haitian official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, told The Associated Press that someone from the 400 Mawozo gang made the ransom demand Saturday in a call to a leader of the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries shortly after the abduction. “This group of workers has been committed to minister throughout poverty-stricken Haiti,” the Ohio group said, adding that the missionaries worked most recently on a project to help rebuild homes lost in a magnitude-7.2 earthquake that struck southwestern Haiti on Aug. 14. The group was returning from visiting an orphanage when it was abducted, the organization said. READ: Haiti gang seeks $17M for kidnapped US missionaries Responding to the recent wave of kidnappings, workers staged a protest strike that shuttered businesses, schools and public transportation starting Monday. The work stoppage was a new blow to Haiti’s anemic economy. Unions and other groups vowed to continue the shutdown indefinitely. In a peaceful demonstration Tuesday north of Port-au-Prince, dozens of people walked through the streets of Titanyen demanding the release of the missionaries. Some carried signs that read “Free the Americans” and “No to Kidnapping!” and explained that the missionaries helped pay bills and build roads and schools. “They do a lot for us,” said Beatrice Jean. Meanwhile, the country’s fuel shortage worsened, with businesses blaming gangs for blocking roads and gas distribution terminals. Hundreds of motorcycles zoomed through the streets of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday as the drivers yelled, “If there’s no fuel, we’re going to burn it all down!” One protest took place near the prime minister’s residence, where police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd demanding fuel. In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the FBI was “part of a coordinated U.S. government effort” to free the missionaries. The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince was coordinating with local officials and the hostages’ families. “We know these groups target U.S. citizens who they assume have the resources and finances to pay ransoms, even if that is not the case,” Psaki said, noting that the government has urged U.S. citizens not to visit Haiti. It is longstanding U.S. policy not to negotiate with hostage takers, and Psaki declined to discuss details of the operation. The kidnapping was the largest of its kind reported in recent years. Haitian gangs have grown more brazen as the country tries to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people. Christian Aid Ministries said the kidnapped group included six women, six men and five children. A sign on the door at the organization’s headquarters in Berlin, Ohio, said it was closed due to the kidnapping situation. News of the kidnappings spread swiftly in and around Holmes County, Ohio, hub of one of the largest populations of Amish and conservative Mennonites in the United States, said Marcus Yoder, executive director of the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in nearby Millersburg, Ohio. Christian Aid Ministries is supported by conservative Mennonite, Amish and related groups that are part of the Anabaptist tradition. READ: Protest strike shuts down Haiti amid search for missionaries The organization was founded in the early 1980s and began working in Haiti later that decade, said Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. The group has year-round mission staff in Haiti and several countries, he said, and it ships religious, school and medical supplies throughout the world.

A gang that kidnapped 17 members of a U,S.-based missionary group has demanded a $17 million ransom for them, according to Haiti's justice minister, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Justice Minister Liszt Quitel said the gang was demanding $1 million per person. Quitel did not immediately return messages for comment, but he also confirmed the figure to the New York Times. The Journal said he identified the ages of the abducted children as 8 months and 3, 6, 14 and 15 years. A wave of kidnappings prompted a protest strike that shuttered businesses, schools and public transportation in a new blow to Haiti's anemic economy, and unions and other groups vowed to continue the shutdown Tuesday. FBI agents and other U.S. officials are helping Haitian authorities hunt for the 12 adults and five children linked to the Christian Aid Ministries in Ohio who were kidnapped Saturday during a trip to visit an orphanage. It is the largest reported kidnapping of its kind in recent years, with Haitian gangs growing more brazen and abductions spiking as the country tries to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and a magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck southern Haiti on Aug. 14 and killed more than 2,200 people. “We are calling on authorities to take action,” said Jean-Louis Abaki, a moto taxi driver who joined the strike Monday to decry killings and kidnappings in the hemisphere's poorest nation. With the usually chaotic streets of Haiti’s capital quiet and largely empty Monday, Abaki said that if Prime Minister Ariel Henry and National Police Chief Léon Charles want to stay in power, “they have to give the population a chance at security.” Haitian police told The Associated Press that the abduction of the 16 Americans and one Canadian was carried out by the 400 Mawozo gang, a group with a long record of killings, kidnappings and extortion. In April, a man who claimed to be the gang's leader told a radio station that it was responsible for abducting five priests, two nuns and three relatives of one of the priests that month. They were later released. Also read: US religious group says 17 missionaries kidnapped in Haiti At least 328 kidnappings were reported to Haiti’s National Police in the first eight months of 2021, compared with a total of 234 for all of 2020, said a report last month by the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. Gangs have been accused of kidnapping schoolchildren, doctors, police officers, bus passengers and others as they grow more powerful and demand ransoms ranging from a couple hundred dollars to millions of dollars. Ned Price, the U.S. State Department's spokesman, said U.S. officials have been in constant contact with Haiti's National Police, the missionary group and the victims' relatives. “This is something that we have treated with the utmost priority since Saturday,” he said, adding that officials are doing “all we can to seek a quick resolution to this.” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the rise in gang violence has affected relief efforts in Haiti. He said the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator reported that “violence, looting, road blockades and the persistent presence of armed gangs all pose obstacles to humanitarian access. The situation is further complicated by very serious fuel shortages and the reduced supply of goods." Dujarric said that Haiti's government should redouble efforts to reform and strengthen the police department to address public safety and that all crimes must be investigated. Christian Aid Ministries said the kidnapped group included six women, six men and five children, including a 2-year-old. A sign on the door at the organization’s headquarters in Berlin, Ohio, said it was closed due to the kidnapping situation. Among those kidnapped were four children and one of their parents from a Michigan family, their pastor told The Detroit News. The youngest from the family is under 10, said minister Ron Marks, who declined to identify them. They arrived in Haiti earlier this month, he said. A pair of traveling Christians stopped by the organization’s headquarters Monday with two young children to drop off packages for impoverished nations. Tirtzah Rarick, originally of California, said she and a friend prayed on Sunday with those who had relatives among the abductees. “Even though it’s painful and it provokes us to tears that our friends and relatives, our dear brothers and sisters, are suffering right now in a very real physical, mental and emotional way, it is comforting to us that we can bring these heavy burdens to the God that we worship,” she said. News of the kidnappings spread swiftly in and around Holmes County, Ohio, hub of one of the nation’s largest populations of Amish and conservative Mennonites, said Marcus Yoder, executive director of the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in nearby Millersburg, Ohio. Christian Aid Ministries is supported by conservative Mennonite, Amish and related groups in the Anabaptist tradition. The organization was founded in the early 1980s and began working in Haiti later that decade, said Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. The group has year-round mission staff in Haiti and several countries, he said, and it ships religious, school and medical supplies throughout the world. Conservative Anabaptists, while disagreeing over technology and other issues, share traditions such as modest, plain clothing, separation from mainstream society, closely disciplined congregations and a belief in nonresistance to violence. Also read: Protest strike shuts down Haiti amid search for missionaries The Amish and Mennonite communities in Holmes County have a close connection with missionary organizations serving Haiti. Every September at the Ohio Haiti Benefit Auction, handmade furniture, quilts, firewood and tools are sold, and barbecue chicken and Haitian beans and rice are dished up. The event typically brings in about $600,000 that is split between 18 missionary groups, said Aaron Miller, one of the organizers.

As many as 150 people, mostly Indian nationals, have been kidnapped by the Taliban from outside the Kabul airport, multiple media reports said on Saturday. Though the Indian Foreign Ministry is yet to make any official confirmation, the Taliban have denied the reports. "The Indians have been taken to a nearby police station for questioning. They will be released soon," a Taliban spokesman told the Afghan media. The Indians nationals were reportedly picked up by the Taliban a couple of hours after an Indian Air Force transport plane evacuated some 85 Indians from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. READ: Reports of targeted Taliban killings fuel Afghans' fears "The aircraft has safely landed in Tajikistan. The plane will return to India after refuelling. A second aircraft is on standby at the Kabul airport for carrying out further evacuations," sources in Delhi told UNB. On Tuesday, India evacuated all its diplomatic staff, including the Ambassador, from its embassy in Kabul on a special flight of the Air Force, some 36 hours after the Taliban seized the capital. "In view of the prevailing circumstances, it has been decided that our Ambassador in Kabul and his Indian staff will move to India immediately," Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted that morning. Though Afghanistan has closed its airspace for all civilian flights, military aircraft are still evacuating stranded foreign nationals with the help of the American troops stationed at the Kabul airport. The Indian government has, meanwhile, introduced a new emergency category of e-visa to fast-track applications from Afghans seeking refuge in this country. In the past two weeks, India has evacuated all its diplomatic staff and their families from its three consulates in Afghanistan -- Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat. In a security advisory last week, the Indian Embassy in Kabul asked all Indian nationals visiting, staying and working in Afghanistan to keep themselves updated on the availability of commercial flights and make immediate arrangements to return to India. The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan on Sunday evening, with the US troops virtually ending their 20-year military presence in the South Asian country. READ: How social platforms are dealing with the Taliban India is particularly worried about the implications of the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan, given the fact that it has so far infused over three billion USD worth development aid into that country and the horrific memories of the Taliban's role in the hijacking of an airliner in 1999.

A 12-year-old schoolboy was found dead hours after he was kidnapped for ransom at a village in the district, police said Sunday. Police found the body at Minapara village in Gangni upazila of Meherpur district on Saturday midnight. Read:Rajshahi child rape & murder case accused shot dead The deceased was identified as Abir Hossain, a class V student of Minapara Government Primary School and son of expatriate Asadul Haque of Chuadanga district. Bazlur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Gangni Police Station, said Abir along with his mother used to live at his maternal grandfather’s house since his childhood. On Saturday, Abir went out with two people including Hamim Hossain, 15, son of Nuh Member by a motorbike and since then he remained missing. Read:Devotee beaten dead in Magura mosque Later, Abir’s family informed the police. Zahurul Islam, grandfather of Abir said they received a phone call from a person asking for a ransom of Tk one lakh for the boy’s reelase on Saturday evening. Later, a team of police conducted a drive and arrested Hamim and Muzahid, 15, son of Mirajul Islam of the village and following their statement, police recovered the body of Abir around midnight. Read:Narsingdi road crash leaves five dead The arrestees told police that they strangled Abir to death and dumped the body there. They body was sent to local hospital morgue. Both the arrestees have long been involved in many criminal cases including that of taking drugs and stealing.

Nine Filipino crew members were kidnapped from a cargo ship owned by Norwegian shipping company J.J. Ugland, Norwegian media reported on Sunday.

Berlin, Oct 13 (AP/UNB) — German police say they have liberated a 22-year-old Polish woman who was kidnapped by three Polish men in the Netherlands.