The rice-seller, Ainal Hoq, chased the police team, who rushed towards the capital by a microbus with the cash Monday night. The businessman caught the cops with the help of a mob and beat them severely before handing them over to police.

Sources said that six policemen of Rajarbagh Police Lines Constables Jahangir Alam, Hasibul Hossain, Shafiq, Babul, Ekram and Nayek Jalal scheming to rob, sent two of their informants Asad Uddin and Abdur Razzak to Srinagar to make a deal with Ainal Hoq, proposing that he supply rice at less than wholesale prices using police influences from Babu Bazar in the capital.

Following the deal, the six policemen, one in uniform, went to Srinagar Monday by hiring a microbus (Dhaka Metro Ga- 14-6645) at 9:00pm and took Tk 3.3 lakh, saying the load of 1050-sacks of rice would reach there in half an hour.

As the load did not reach by 10:00pm, Hoq became suspicious and charged the team, causing the policemen to rush away in their vehicle. Hoq followed and caught the microbus at Shyampur Bazar, near Buriganga Bridge-1, at around 11:30pm when it stopped in a jam. Yelling 'muggers', Hoq gathered a mob, who vandalised the vehicle and held five Jahangir Alam, Ekram, Razzak, Asad and the driver of the vehicle Belayet.

The four others Hasibul, Babul, Jalal and Shafiq fled the scene with the cash.

Shyampur police admitted critically injured Jahangir Alam to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Srinagar police took three of the arrestees to Munshiganj at 2:00am yesterday.

Driver Belayet claimed his innocence. "The policemen rented my vehicle, saying they would nab a criminal and took me there," Shyampur police told The Daily Star, quoting Belayet.

Hoq filed a case with Srinagar Police Station in this connection. Police, however, could not recover the money or arrest the others as of the filing of this report last evening.

Jahangir, while undergoing treatment at the hospital, told a DMCH employee that the six got out of the police lines Monday evening. "Our duty-in-charge let us go after registering the names," the employee told the press, quoting the constable.

"He [duty-in-charge] compelled us into corruption by taking Tk 500 from each of us for letting us go out from the police lines," Jahangir added.

Lately, snatching and extortion by law enforcers have become a frequent incident.

Four policemen were arrested on July 21 for stealing 13.5 kilograms of silver and Tk 28,000 from an employee of a gold-smith shop in the capital.

On June 29, Sergeant Zulfikar Ali robbed a businessman of Tk 14.47 lakh at Bijoynagar. He has been remanded thrice and then sent to jail, but the booty is yet to be recovered.

Three policemen were arrested on April 10 at Shyampur for extorting from the owner of an auto-rickshaw garage, and SI Hafizur Rahman of the Rapid Action Battalion was held on March 3 at Khilgaon for robbing a rice wholesaler.