30 held over attack on cop, police boxes

Police have arrested 30 people after battery-rickshaw drivers attacked an officer and vandalised police boxes in the capital’s Mirpur and Pallabi on Friday.

Different police teams made the arrests from Friday night to yesterday.

Mirpur police arrested 13 people, Pallabi police arrested eight, while a team of Detective Branch (DB) arrested nine from different areas of Mirpur.

At a press conference yesterday, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Additional Commissioner (DB) Mohammad Harun Or Rashid said some unruly battery-rickshaw drivers vandalised traffic-police boxes and attacked an officer, who was intercepting illegal battery-rickshaws.

“They spread a rumour that traffic police had beaten up a rickshaw driver with physical disabilities. This created tension among the drivers. Following that, battery-rickshaw owners, drivers and people associated with the business sparked the incident,” he said.

On Friday, the drivers vandalised five traffic-police boxes in Mirpur and Pallabi, and injured traffic constable Mizanur Rahman.

The incident took place around 8:30am in front of Adarsha ​​School in Mirpur-10, when the constable stopped two battery-rickshaws, said Elias Hossain, assistant commissioner of Traffic Division (Pallabi Zone).

Twenty-five to 30 drivers launched the attack. They also vandalised a police motorbike.

Two cases were filed with Mirpur and Pallabi police stations in this connection.