Staff Correspondent:

The detective branch (DB) of police seized 20,300 sets of uniform that the law enforcement said belonged to armed hill rebel group, Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF), from an apparel factory in Nayarhat area of Chattogram last week.

The law enforcement seized the uniforms from Ringvo Apparels in the small hours of 18 May and arrested three suspects including the factory owner in this connection.

The police filed a case where it has been said that the order was placed at a cost of Tk 20 million (2 crore).

The matter became public on Sunday.

The arrested are Sahedul Islam, owner of the factory, Golam Azam, and Niaz Haider.

Chattogram city detective branch of police’s sub-inspector (SI) Iqbal Hossain filed the lawsuit at Bayezid Bostami police station under anti-terrorism act on 18 May.

The fourth accused in the case is Monghlasin Marma, 37, from Kaptai in Rangamati.

Neither the Bayezid Bostami police station officer-in-charge Arifur Rahman nor the plaintiff Iqbal Hossain agreed to talk to Prothom Alo about anything on record.

Prothom Alo phoned Chattogram Metropolitan Police commissioner Hasib Aziz over phone around 5:00 pm Sunday but he did not pick up the call.

Ringvo Apparels’ production manager Md Kamruzzaman, who has been mentioned as no. 1 witness in the police’s list of seized materials on the day of the raid, told Prothom Alo, “We did not know the clothes were illegal. We learned about it when the police came here.”

The case statement said Golam Azam and Niaz Haider placed the order at the factory in March. They took the order from a certain Monghlasin Marma alias Mong at a cost of Tk 20 million. The clothes were scheduled to be delivered this month.

The case statement further said armed members of banned organisation KNF commit various crimes including extortion, murder, kidnapping, forced disappearance in different areas of Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban districts. They collect money from different sources to harm public security, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Bangladesh.

Chittagong Hill Tract-based armed rebel group KNF revealed itself through opening a Facebook page a couple of years ago. They also announced forming a separate state consisting nine upazilas of two hilly districts.

Allegations of extortion and killing were raised against the armed group from the very beginning. At one point they allegedly got involved in training Islamic militants.

They were also found to be involved in robbery at three branches of two banks, including two branches at two upazilas of Bandarban within 17 hours.

Since then the law enforcement has engaged in armed clashes with them several times.

Source: Prothom Alo