A textiles worker in Narsingdi, Bangladesh, has been left devastated after thieves broke into his rented apartment during the Durga Puja celebrations, absconding with 5 million Bangladeshi Taka (£32,000) in cash and eight bhoris of gold jewellery. The cash, amassed from selling inherited ancestral farmland, was meant to fund Sukhan Chowdhury’s lifelong dream of purchasing his own dyeing factory.
Sukhan Chowdhury, 50, originally from Guhiyala village in Netrokona’s Barhatta sub-district, has worked for years at Eva Dyeing in Shekharchar. For half a decade, he resided with his wife and children on the second floor of a seven-storey building owned by Naresh Chandra Saha in the Sebasangha area of Narsingdi town. Having finally finalised negotiations to buy a dyeing enterprise, he had stashed the sale proceeds inside his home wardrobe alongside his wife’s gold ornaments.
The family locked their apartment on the afternoon of Sunday, 12 October, to travel to their ancestral village for the annual Hindu festival of Durga Puja. Upon returning at approximately 8:00 pm on Friday, 17 October, they found themselves unable to unlock the main door. Even after cutting the padlock, the door remained firmly jammed from the inside. Suspicious, the family inspected the exterior of the building and discovered that the iron grilles on a rear window had been severed.
With assistance from neighbours, Chowdhury squeezed through the breached window to open the front door from within. Inside, the flat was in utter disarray, with furniture overturned, clothes scattered across the floor, and the wardrobe forced open. The entirety of the factory purchase fund and all eight bhoris—approximately 93 grams—of gold jewellery were gone.
Speaking on the devastating loss, Sukhan Chowdhury expressed that the thieves had effectively stolen his entire life’s work and future ambitions in one night. His wife, Purabi Pandit, recounted the horror of returning from a festive celebration only to find their home ransacked and their life savings wiped out.
Narsingdi Model Police Station Officer-in-Charge MR Al Mamun confirmed that a formal written complaint was lodged on Friday evening. Law enforcement officers have initiated a full investigation, collecting footage from nearby Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to identify the perpetrators and track down the stolen assets.
