Cleaning worker wearing burqa sets fire to Primary Education Department: Police

Police have arrested three people in connection with the fire at the Primary Education Department. Police said the fire was set ‘intentionally’ to damage the laptops, including the goods kept in the store room. A male cleaning worker named Asmaul Islam, wearing a burqa, set the fire. Police claimed that he was given a contract of Tk5 lakh for this work.

Mirpur Division Deputy Commissioner Md. Mostaq Sarkar gave this information at a press conference at the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Media Center on Saturday night.

Arrested Asmaul worked as a master role cleaning worker in the department. The other two arrested based on his information are store in-charge Zinat Ali Biswas and master role storekeeper Huamun Kabir Khan.

A fire broke out in the second floor store room of the department early Friday. There were 735 laptops kept there for distribution at the field level. At a press conference, police said that 140 laptops were completely burnt in the fire, 29 were mostly damaged and 33 were partially damaged. While 450 were intact, the remaining 83 were missing. However, there was no evidence of anything being removed from there in the CCTV video.

Deputy Commissioner Mostaq said that the fire was set to damage the laptops and goods in the store room. This caused a loss of about two to three crore taka.

Stating that Asmaul was given a contract of Tk5 lakh in exchange for setting the fire, he said that out of this, Tk80 thousand was given in cash, with which he bought various things.

Police said that another person named Hridoy has been identified and efforts are underway to arrest him. The Deputy Commissioner also said that efforts will be made to identify the main planners of the fire by interrogating the arrested persons on remand.