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Police have arrested five individuals in connection with the looting of stones from the Bholaganj Sadapathar tourism center in Sylhet’s Companyganj Upazila.
The arrests were made during a raid conducted by Companyganj Thana Police on the night of Friday, August 15. The Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Companyganj Thana, Ujayer Al Mahmud Adnan, confirmed the arrests but did not disclose the identities of those detained.
Earlier on Friday, a case was filed at Companyganj Thana by Anwarul Habib, Director General (Joint Secretary) of the Bureau of Mineral Development (BMD), regarding the illegal extraction of stones from Bholaganj Sadapathar. The case named 1,500 to 2,000 unidentified individuals as accused.
Notably, since August 5 last year, stones have been stolen from the Sadapathar area along the banks of the Dhalai River in Companyganj Upazila. Over the past two weeks, stones worth crores of taka have been looted. In response, the district administration launched a special operation starting midnight on Thursday, August 14, to recover the stolen stones, and the operation is still ongoing. So far, approximately 100,000 cubic feet of stones have been recovered and are being restored to the Dhalai River.
