Rapid Action Battalion claimed to have detained the mastermind and six others behind last month's heist at a Joypurhat branch of Brac Bank Limited.

The elite force members recovered Tk 56 lakh cash from their possession, Captain Maksudul Alam, assistant director of Rab's Legal and Media Wing, told The Daily Star.

He said Rab detained them in separate raids throughout the capital city of Dhaka and its outskirts yesterday and today.

The detainees include Manjurul Hassan Shamim, the alleged mastermind, and Raza Miah, a specialist in unlocking vaults, the Rab official claimed.

Later, an official of the elite force disclosed further details of the heist at a press conference arranged at Rab headquarters this afternoon.

The Brac bank branch located at the two-storied Shahjahan Mansion in Joypurhat town was broken in during the last week of September.

Criminals dug through a wall, shared mutually by Shahjahan Mansion and Mousumi Market, to enter the bank located on the first floor.

Bank officials said Tk 1.95 crore was missing from the vault.

After more than a week and half, Rab has claimed to have detained the mastermind of the heist and some others along with a part of the stolen money.

During primary interrogation, Rab found out that the ring had committed similar criminal activities in the past, an official said during the presser.

THE DETAINEES

The five others detained were identified as Badal Mallik, Anup Chandra Pandit, Plabon Chandra Pandit, Swapan Debnath and MK Kuddusur Rahman Bulu.

Three others, one Islam, Taj Mahmud and Nowsher are still absconding.

Though Brac Bank authorities said that the money stolen amounted to Tk 1.96 crore, those detained said they stole Tk 1.63 crore from the bank.

Raza Miah, an accused in the Brac bank branch heist in Dhaka, told journalists during the presser that he met Shamim in jail in 2004.

Raza hired experts Islam and Taj Mahmud from Chittagong to carry out the heist, said Mufti Mahmud Khan, Rab media wing director, during the briefing.

The detainees were all well acquainted among themselves. They had carried out several similar criminal activities before, he added.

The elite force was trying to recover the remaining money and arrest the others involved.

DETAILS OF THE HEIST

On September 12, Shamim and Bulu rented a house nearby under the banner of a fraud NGO 'Bangladesh Poor Development'.

The flat was rented under an agreement of monthly Tk 5,000 rent with Tk 50,000 paid in advance.

A week before the heist, its plan was sketched out in a meeting held in that flat. Then, the plan was executed on September 26.

The heist was carried out between 11:00pm and 2:00am. Four of them took part in the heist while five others were waiting outside.

Taj and Nowsher made a hole in the wall. They disconnected the close circuit cameras before the operation.

Raza Miah and Islam used specialised equipment to unlock the vault. They only bagged the notes in Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 and shared the money among themselves in an adjacent room.

BRAC BANK IN SHOCK

Authorities of the bank were in shock as to "how the heist took place despite state-of-the art security measures at the branch".

"We have motion detectors, seismic alarms and a metal vault," said Syed Faridul Islam, head of the bank’s risk management team.

"We don’t have any idea on how the incident happened with all the security measures in place," he added.