Storing of more than a thousand vehicles seized during different drives have become a burden to Bogura authorities as there is no dedicated space in the district.
As a result, evidence of criminal cases is being destroyed, and assets worth crores are being wasted.
According to Bogura district police, there are currently 587 seized vehicles in the district, including 9 microbuses, 49 private cars, 58 trucks and pickup vans, 19 CNG auto-rickshaws, 415 motorcycles, 28 e-rickshaws, 5 vans, and 4 bicycles.
Additionally, 246 vehicles have been seized in cases by the Department of Narcotics Control.
The seized vehicles are scattered across the DB office, court warehouse, Banani Highway Police Station, and Dhaka Road in Shajahanpur, leaving over a thousand vehicles abandoned across 12 police stations.
No government agency is taking responsibility for removing these vehicles due to the lack of auctioning facilities.
Upon investigation, 12 police stations, the Police Lines warehouses in and Bogura court warehouse have now become a junkyard for abandoned vehicles.
Local journalists have reported that a fleet of motorcycles once kept at the Bogura Sadar Police Station has now been moved to the court’s warehouse basement, where the ground floor and corridor are filled with seized vehicles.
Bogura Sadar police station OC Hassan Basir said, “Most of the seized vehicles here are related to drug cases. Since we don’t have enough space to store them, we’ve moved them to the court’s warehouse.”
Additional Police Super Hussain Md Raihan stated that police currently lack an effective storage system, leaving seized vehicles exposed under the sky.
“Years of pending cases have rendered many unusable, and timely auctions could have generated substantial revenue for the state,” he said.
Zillur Rahman, Deputy Director of the Department of Narcotics Control also reiterated the need for a dedicated space.
“In the past 5 years, 131 vehicles of various types have been seized in Bogura. If proper measures were taken according to government regulations, the seized vehicles in drug cases and other cases could have been managed better.”
Abdul Bached, Public Prosecutor at the Bogura District and Sessions Court, stated that a dedicated warehouse for seized vehicles would have allowed proper preservation, but none exists in the district.
“Mismanagement by previous governments has led to the destruction of evidence, and swift action in consultation with the District Judge is now essential,” he said.
