Courier Covered Van Set Ablaze in Dhaka After Extortion Refused, AJR Claims Tk 1.5 Crore in Losses

A covered van of AJR Courier Service was set on fire in front of the Rayerbazar arat in the capital after extortion money was refused. A group of miscreants carried out the attack on Thursday (5 November) at around 9:30 pm. Most of the goods and important documents inside the vehicle were burned.

The company claims initial losses of between Tk 1 crore and Tk 1.5 crore. Important goods and documents belonging to customers, small traders, banks, insurers and other institutions were burned. The company said the loss figure could rise further once the bank and insurance documents are assessed.

AJR Group AGM Joyonto Chowdhury said a leading criminal gang had long been demanding extortion money from the company. He alleged that, having failed to get the money, the gang attacked and set fire to the company's offices and vehicles at various times.

Joyonto Chowdhury said that as part of that campaign, the company's office in Narayanganj was set on fire. Vehicles of the company were later torched at Shahbagh and Rayerbazar. In Mirpur, he said, an attempt was also made to kill an employee by throwing a petrol bomb to set his body on fire.

Earlier, on 20 October, a group of 70 to 80 people was accused of attacking and vandalising a warehouse of AJR Parcel and Courier Service Limited in Hazaribagh in the capital, looting equipment worth about Tk 31 lakh. The company wanted to file a robbery case, but police said the real motive of the incident was extortion, and that a case would be taken over the extortion.

The incident took place that day at 6:44 pm at the company's central sorting centre warehouse behind Sikder Medical College on Mendi Dental College Road. The next morning, the company's human resources and administration manager Afsar Uddin filed a written complaint at Hazaribagh thana against 70 to 80 unnamed people. The complaint says an unknown person later threatened to kill him over the phone for filing the case.

According to the complaint, on the day of the incident, men wearing masks and helmets arrived at the warehouse's west gate on 35 to 40 motorcycles. Of them, 40 to 50 broke the CCTV cameras and entered, while the rest stayed outside. The complaint also says eight to nine of the attackers carried firearms and two or three carried shotgun-like weapons.

The company claims the attackers took away a Cisco core device, a router, nine Dahua NVRs of various capacities, 38 hard disks of 10 terabytes, a server rack, 40 cameras, eight CPUs, eight monitors and a laptop. The estimated market value of the equipment is Tk 31 lakh.

The written complaint further says that on 18 October at around 10:30 pm, two men came to the warehouse on a motorcycle looking for operations manager Nizam Uddin. Not finding him, they threatened the security guards and left. The company says it has CCTV footage of that incident.

The complaint also says a man named Jewel later spoke of a plan to attack, rob and occupy another office of the company. Afsar Uddin alleged that after the incident, a man named Saiful phoned to threaten him into covering up the robbery. Extortion had also previously been demanded from the company in the name of 'Captain Emon', the complaint says.

Joyonto Chowdhury said most of the company's workers are low-income people, and their jobs could become uncertain because of these incidents. He sought urgent government intervention to ensure workers' safety and keep the company's normal operations running, and demanded that those involved in the attacks and sabotage be brought to justice quickly.