The controversial Rantosh Barua and Rubel Barua have been arrested in an extortion case in Ramu, Cox’s Bazar. They are residents of Srikul village in Fatekharkul union of Ramu upazila. Rantosh Barua fell into a septic tank while talking excessively while extorting money during the construction of a house in the same area. To frame his opponent, Rantosh Barua staged a drama of throwing himself into a septic tank by circulating an incomplete and edited video on social media.
Later, the victim, former bank official Santosh Barua, filed a case in the learned court on charges of extortion in the incident. In this case, the Ramu police arrested Rantosh and Rubel from their house in North Srikul, Ramu at 11:30 pm on Tuesday (November 18). Police said that both the arrested are accused in the extortion case. According to the case report, Santosh Barua, a former bank officer of Uttar Srikul village, had a long-standing dispute with his stepbrothers Ranatosh Barua and Rubel Barua over land. Although local public representatives and dignitaries took initiatives to hold an arbitration meeting on this issue several times, Ranatosh and Rubel did not accept any arbitration.
The case report also revealed that Santosh Barua was carrying out construction work on his home. In this situation, on March 8 of this year, when the workers went to work, Ranatosh Barua and Rubel Barua, along with some of their associates, illegally entered Santosh Barua’s home with country-made weapons and obstructed the workers from working. They demanded a ransom of 1 million taka if they wanted to continue working. At that time, when he refused to pay the ransom, they attacked Santosh Barua in a terrorist manner and threatened to kill him.
In the midst of the insecurity in this incident, Santosh Barua filed a case (No. CR 202/2025) in the learned court on March 24. The court issued an arrest warrant against them in this case. The plaintiff in the case, Santosh Barua, said, On the day of the incident, I was supervising the house work. At that time, Rantosh, Rubel and their associates suddenly came and asked my mechanic to stop the work and demanded a bribe of Tk 10 lakh from me to continue the work. At one point, when they attacked me, my son ran out of the house to save me.
At that time, when my son tried to stop them, they got into a fight.
At one point in the fight, Rantosh fell into a nearby septic tank.
And within a couple of minutes, he got up from there and attacked me and my son again and wreaked havoc in the house, including vandalizing the boundary pillars of the house. But to divert the story, they edited the footage of the CCTV camera and deleted the before and after parts and spread a video footage of only three seconds on social media, trying to pin the blame on us. Ramu Police Station OC (Investigation) Mohammad Farid said – There was an arrest warrant against Ranatosh Barua and Rubel Barua in an extortion case filed in a learned court. They were arrested in a police operation. The two arrested were sent to Cox’s Bazar jail on Wednesday afternoon. Locals said that in addition to the septic tank scam, the arrested Ranatosh Barua and Rubel Barua have serious allegations of plotting to frame their opponents by exploding their own heads. It is learned that their brother, former bank officer Santosh Barua, had been in a long-standing dispute with his stepbrother Ranatosh Barua over his land. There have also been several cases of assault cases between them. When the dispute between the two parties reached a climax, some prominent people in the society, including local public representatives, took the initiative to resolve the dispute. With the consent of both parties, both parties also agreed to accept the judgment of the arbitrators. Recently, the arbitrators called a meeting of both parties at a business establishment in Chaumuhani Station to announce the verdict of the arbitration.
When the judges started reading the decisions to both parties at the meeting, Rubel Barua expressed his inability to accept these decisions.
As a result, Rubel Barua’s side argued with the arbitrators. At one point, when the meeting ended without a resolution, both parties left. After investigation, it was learned that the elder brother Rantosh Barua, with the intention of framing the opponent and their half-brother Santosh Barua, entered the village road from Chaumuhani Station and hit his younger brother Rubel Barua on the head, causing his head to crack and bleed, and the opponent’s people spread the news in the village that he had hit his head with a brick. Not only that, they tried to get a medical certificate from a local hospital. However, their attempt failed when the real incident was published in the media at that time.