Police suspect bid to spread panic, damage country’s image

A criminal gang has been sending threat emails to various embassies in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Additional Commissioner (Detective Branch) Shafiqul Islam said today.The gang used the bKash numbers of ordinary people in the emails in an attempt to extort money, he said.We brought in three to four people whose bKash numbers were used in these emails for questioning. They knew nothing about it,” he said, speaking at a press conference at the DMP Media Centre.The gang had sent similar threat emails to four foreign embassies, including those of China, Pakistan and Turkey, as well as several government offices, Shafiqul said.Our preliminary assessment is that this may not be solely an attempt at extortion. Creating panic among foreign ambassadors and diplomatic missions and tarnishing the country’s image may also be among the gang’s objectives,” the DB chief said.