Police have failed to recover the arms used to intimidate two university students during rape at the Raintree Hotel in the capital's Banani on March 28. Police also failed to seize the video recording of the rape incident on the mobile phone of one of the accused.
Earlier, police arrested two accused Ahmed Shafat and Shadman Sakif. Ahmed Shafat is the son of one of the owners of Apan Jewellers and Shadman Sakif is one of the directors of Regnum Group.
The Raintree Hotel authorities said they took the firearms for safekeeping when Ahmed Shafat and his friends entered the hotel. But according to the case the accused used arms during the rape which was recorded on a mobile phone.
Meanwhile, police on Monday arrested Billal, the car driver and Rahmat Ali, the bodyguard of Safat Ahmed. They are learnt to have helped in the rape of two university students.
Billal was caught from a hotel in Nawabpur and Ali from Gulshan in the city on Monday.
A police official of the investigation team, seeking anonymity, told the Daily Observer on Monday that police are yet to confirm if the used arms was illegal or not. Police source said the firearms owned by the Apan Jewellers might be licenced but whether Ahmed Shafat had a licence to carry firearms is not clear.
The Raintree Hotel authorities had deleted their closed-circuit camera footage of March 28 night after five persons allegedly raped two young women in two rooms of the hotel. The investigators are now trying to recover the deleted footage amid non-cooperation of the hotel authorities.
A police official of Banani, seeking anonymity, claimed that the hotel authorities deleted the footage of the entire month of March on the last day of the month - couple of days after the rape incident.
Meanwhile, police failed to arrest Nayem Ashraf Halim, police sources said.
According to sources, the accused on remand said they had done similar incidents before, but had threatened their victims to keep their mouth shut. They also threatened these two women.
The investigating authorities say that since the accused have admitted to committing rape, they can also make a video of the incident. Maybe they have deleted it before being arrested. But they can share them with a friend to prove it. For this, their social network Facebook Inbox, Emo, Viber, WhatsApp will be checked. CID's forensic department will assist in this regard.
The Investigation Officer of the case Ismat Ara said important information was found during the remand. Especially, they confessed to several other such crimes.
On March 28, Safat Ahmed, son of Dildar Ahmed, one of the owners of Apan Jewellers, invited a few friends to attend his birthday in Banani's Raintree Hotel. Of them, two young women were forced into two hotel rooms at gunpoint. Five days after the incident on May 6, a case was filed against five people with the Banani Police Station. They are Safat Ahmed, Sharan Sakhif, Nayeem Ashraf, Safat's driver Billal and his bodyguard Rahmat Ali.
Saifur Rahman, Deputy Director of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID), told the Daily Observer on Monday an outlet of Apan Jewellers in Gulshan was sealed off on Sunday.
The CIID has issued summons against the owner of Apan Jewellers to verify the source of his stock of gold and jewellery and the owner of Raintree Hotel over illegal possession of alcohol.
Monirul Khan. Director General of CIID said they will have to appear with the necessary documents at the CIID headquarters at 11:00am on May 17.
