Three held over female NBR officer's abduction

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said the ex-husband of Masuma Khatun has plotted the abduction and torture of the National Board of Revenue (RBR)'s joint commissioner, along with her former driver, reports bdnews24.com.
The government official incurred the wrath of the two men, RAB spokesman Commander Khandaker Al Moin told a media briefing in city on Saturday after the arrest of the driver, Md Masud, and his two accomplices.
Masud and his cohorts, Abdul Jalil Ponu and Hafiz Shahin, were arrested in separate raids in Gazipur's Sreepur and Dhaka's Sabujbagh on Saturday.
"Masuma fired Masud from his job due to his indiscipline on Aug 01, which made him angry. The tax official's former husband Harun Ar Rashid grabbed the opportunity
to teach her a lesson," Moin said.
"Harun contacted Masud and enticed him with a hefty amount of money for taking the joint tax commissioner to a house in the city's Hatirjheel."
The arrestees revealed Harun's involvement during interrogation. The investigation officer will investigate the matter further, according to the RAB official.
The RAB said Harun paid Masud Tk 70,000 in advance for abducting Masuma. Masud later planned the abduction and split the money with his other accomplices -- Shahin, Ponu, Yasin Arafat Raju, Abu Bakkar Siddique aka Sabbir, Saiful Islam and Shanto.
On Aug 17, the driver's gang assaulted Masuma and her driver near the Viqarunnisa Noon School and College around 8 pm. Then they took Masuma and held her captive in a garage in Narayanganj's Kachpur for 18 hours. The NBR officer had one of her legs broken and her eyes severely damaged due to the torture.
On the day of the incident, Masuma was returning to her home in Siddheshwari in her car, she wrote in the case statement. As her car reached near Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, a motorcycle and a rickshaw suddenly blocked the road.
When the driver stepped out of the car to protest, the gang snatched the ignition key and abducted Masuma, leaving her driver Anwar at the scene.
The kidnappers contacted Harun while heading to Hatirjheel. They found the door of the Hatirjheel house closed and started to roam around the area to kill time. Masud later took Masuma and her car to a garage in Kachpur and demanded a ransom of Tk 5 million from the tax official. They taped her mouth and beat her throughout the night. They tortured Masuma until 2 pm the next day.
On Aug 18, Masud went to the capital's Madartek on Harun's orders. Some of his accomplices went out to buy food at the time, leaving two or three members of their gang behind to keep watch. Masuma took the opportunity to get out of the car and start screaming for help, according to the RAB.
Locals later rushed to the scene and rescued her. They nabbed three members of the gang and informed the Shahbagh police. Later, officers from Sabujbagh Police Station rescued Masuma and arrested three suspects - Saiful, Sabbir and Raju.
They snatched Tk 150,000 and a mobile phone from Joint Commissioner Masuma on the day of the incident. Police later recovered the victim's laptop and mobile phone from the suspects.