Bangladesh unrest | Some return PM house loot: Jewellery, cat, classified papers

They began by issuing appeals on social media to people to return the items.

Some responded to their appeals. People came back with chairs, sofas, refrigerator, Apple iMac, MacBooks, iPhones, gym equipment, tables, an electric guitar, even some pigeons and a cat.

A man confessed that he had taken a duck and eaten it, so he gave money instead. An autorickshaw driver returned Bangladeshi Taka 1 lakh (about Rs 74,000) that he had taken from the drawers of the residence. Another person returned valuables and jewellery, including a diamond nose-pin and a pendant.

Protesters lying on a bed inside Ganobhaban.

“We were protesting against the Prime Minister and asking her to step down. People just entered and took away stuff out of excitement…and damaged the place. We are not looters, this is our national property and we want to restore this place to its past condition,” Shakib Arifin, the lead coordinator for the clean-up exercise tagged as the Ganabhaban ‘rebuilding’ committee, told The Indian Express.

A “collection counter” has been set up at the gate, where people have been dropping off some of the looted items. A group of volunteers keep a record of the items returned.

“Some people want to identify themselves, some don’t… some just say that they found it near their home…we don’t want to make it awkward for them, so we don’t press them for their identity details,” said Mohammad Moin, who is among those coordinating the ‘rebuilding’ effort.

The volunteers said they were not treating these people as “criminals”, and the fact that they were returning valuables showed their “integrity”.

Among the things that were returned were documents, including some marked confidential — classified defence and security-related papers — and accounts of the PM’s residence. “The documents are being kept in a safe room, guarded by Bangladesh Army personnel now,” said Hafizuddin Munna, a documentary filmmaker who is also a coordinator.

Among the images of the looting that went viral was a woman with a Dior suitcase. Munna said the woman has been “identified”. “She is a doctor, and we are going to reach out to her and recover the Dior suitcase,” he said.

“On June 5, people were excited and wanted to take away things as souvenirs… But we don’t want to destroy the place, we are against such activities, these were just ordinary people with pent-up anger…ora ullas korchhilo (they were celebrating) after Hasina quit and left the country,” said Arifin.

At last count, on Tuesday, Munna said they had recovered at least 450-500 items — including 120 types of furniture, about 70 electronic items, 150 mattresses. Volunteers reckon that an estimated 60 per cent of what was looted has been recovered.

“We are making a list and will submit it to the Bangladesh Army and the interim government led by Prof Yunus, before we hand over the place to the authorities,” he said. “We are also making a separate list of unusable (broken or damaged) items which can be sold off or dealt with separately.”

When The Indian Express visited Ganabhaban on Tuesday, volunteers were cleaning up the place. The lawn was covered with furniture — sofas, tables, chairs, refrigerator, bunk beds, mattresses, almirahs. Volunteers said the place was full of glass shards and broken furniture, and they had to repair the boundary wall at more than 60 places. At the entrance, there were damaged cars, a damaged motorcycle and a lawn mower.

Volunteers were still controlling access to the PM’s residence, with the Bangladesh Army providing perimeter security. Only those who had been assigned to clean up the place were allowed entry.

At the gate, some students asked the volunteers if they could enter. “Eta chiriyakhana naki (is this a zoo)?,” a volunteer responded, before shooing away the onlookers.

The volunteers are young men and women — from government universities, private colleges, madrasa students — mostly in their 20s, and some professionals in their late 20s and early 30s.

“After the euphoria and the emotional storm, it is now time to reform and rebuild Bangladesh… Why not start from Ganabhaban. After all, this is not Hasina’s personal property. This is our national property, built with the hard-earned money of the common people of Bangladesh. Now that we have got rid of the autocratic regime and regained our freedom for the second time, by cleaning up, recovering and restoring this place, we can show to the world that we are capable of rebuilding Bangladesh…and not destroying it,” said Ahsanul Kishore, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at a private university and one of the coordinators of the clean-up exercise.

Ganabhaban, a sprawling bungalow with manicured lawns and a water body, was designated the official residence of the Bangladesh Prime Minister after Hasina moved here in March 2010, a year after she was re-elected.