The officer-in-charge (OC) of Kotwali Police Station has been withdrawn from his post over allegations of misappropriating 100,000 yaba pills seized from a police member in Chattogram’s Bakalia area in December last year.
At the time of the incident, OC Aftab Uddin, was serving at Bakalia Police Station in the port city.
The commissioner of Chattogram Metropolitan Police passed the order on Wednesday night.
Inspector Zayed Nur has been appointed as the new OC of Kotwali Police Station in his place.
Confirming the matter to The Daily Star, CMP Commissioner Hasan Md Shawkat Ali said, “Following a police report regarding the alleged misappropriation of yaba tablets, OC Aftab has been removed from Kotwali Police Station and attached to the Police Lines.
“The matter is currently under investigation by Police Headquarters. In connection with the same incident, former Bakalia Police Station's Inspector (Investigation) Tanvir Hossain was suspended a few days ago.
“Besides this, several new postings have been made to mobilise regular work,” he added.
Earlier, on January 5, eight CMP personnel were suspended following an internal probe into the embezzlement of around one lakh yaba tablets seized in Chattogram.
The yaba pills were recovered from a police constable during a checkpost operation in the Bakalia area on December 8.
Constable Imtiaj Hossain Sowrav, a member of Cox's Bazar district police and a gunman of a judicial magistrate, was carrying the yaba pills from Cox's Bazar to Dhaka, according to the probe report.
According to police and local sources, a patrol team led by SI Amir Hossain was conducting checks on buses in the Notun Bridge area of Bakalia on the night of December 8 when they stopped a Dhaka-bound bus coming from Cox's Bazar.
Imtiaj was asked to get off the bus on suspicion of carrying drugs and taken to a nearby police box, where he identified himself as a policeman and a judge's gunman.
Multiple sources said around one lakh yaba tablets were recovered from his bag during the search. Despite the recovery, he was later released, and the drugs were allegedly misappropriated.
