BNP Leaders Beaten While Trying to Collect Extortion Money from Businessman, Released on Bond

District Correspondent

Two local BNP leaders have faced intense public outrage in Babuganj, Barisal, while attempting to extort money from ordinary people.

While going to collect extortion money, they were subjected to a mob beating at around 10 PM on Monday, June 15th, in the Renditola area of Chandpasha Union in the upazila. At that time, enraged locals detained them in a shop for nearly two hours. They were later released following the intervention of senior party leaders and after signing a written undertaking that they would not engage in such conduct in the future.

The two accused leaders are Mehedi Hasan Jakir Molla, Organizational Secretary of Chandpasha Union BNP and President of Ward No. 2, and Abdur Razzak Molla, Organizational Secretary of the same ward.

According to relevant sources, dredger businessman Nazrul Islam recently secured a major sand-filling contract in the Renditola area of Chandpasha Union. From the moment he received the contract, Jakir Molla and Razzak Molla had been demanding 20,000 taka in extortion money from Nazrul Islam, leveraging the clout of their party positions. On Monday night, when they called again pressing for the extortion money, the fed-up businessman Nazrul Islam told them to come to the Renditola area to collect the money.

When they arrived in Renditola at around 10 PM to collect the extortion money, pre-prepared local residents caught them red-handed. The agitated crowd then beat them and locked them inside a shop. After being held for nearly two hours, the situation was defused through the mediation of senior BNP leaders, and they were freed upon signing the undertaking.

Victim businessman Nazrul Islam said, “From the moment I got the sand-filling contract, they were demanding money by threatening me with the party. In the end, I was forced to tell them, ‘Brothers, you just do the sand-filling work yourselves and just pay me the dredger machine rental.’ But they didn’t agree to that either. Their clear message was — no work, they wanted cash extortion money.”

However, denying all allegations, the accused Mehedi Hasan Jakir Molla claimed, “We did not ask for any extortion money, we asked for the sand work. Nazrul has staged this drama to frame us.”

Regarding this matter, the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of the local Airport Police Station, Mizanur Rahman Remu, stated that so far no one has filed a written complaint at the police station regarding this incident. If a complaint is received, legal action will certainly be taken promptly.