Chattogram police have successfully recovered 1,911 missing court case files, contained in nine bags, from a scrap shop in the city.
The documents, which vanished from the court premises, were found at a junk shop in the Kotwali area on Thursday (9 January), said Officer-in-Charge Abdul Karim of Kotwali Police Station.
"A general diary was filed regarding the disappearance of the court files. Our investigation, guided by the diary, involved scrutinising intelligence reports and CCTV footage, leading us to a suspect named Rasel," he added.
The arrest was made during a raid in the Bou Bazar area under Bakalia Police Station on Wednesday (8 January).
Rasel confessed to stealing the files from the court and selling them to a junk shop in the Patharghata area.
Acting on his information, police recovered the nine bags of documents on Thursday morning.
OC Abdul Karim further assured that appropriate legal measures are underway following the incident.
The incident came to light after Chattogram Metropolitan Public Prosecutor Mofizul Haque Bhuiyan lodged a general diary on 5th January at Kotwali Police Station. He reported that 1,911 files, concerning various criminal cases including murder, drug trafficking, smuggling, and explosions, were missing from the Metropolitan PP Office, located on the third floor of the Chattogram Court Building.
The files, stored in plastic-wrapped bags due to space constraints, were placed on the veranda outside the PP Office since 24th April 2023. The office, which was closed during the court’s holiday break from 13th to 31st December, discovered the disappearance upon reopening.
Lawyers expressed shock at the audacity of the theft, given the heightened security usually observed around the court premises after dusk. They have called for a thorough investigation into the matter.
The general diary noted that approximately 28 to 30 court case dockets were stored in the Metropolitan PP Office.
Disappearance of such a significant number of files from a high-security area has raised serious concerns and demands immediate and meticulous investigation.
