The recovered items are five touchstone statutes--two of them of 26 inch X 16 inch dimension, 30 brass statutes, 580 ancient statues of various size, six wooden statutes, five foreign catalogues for making statue, around 350 ancient and 500 silver coins, various kinds of stone buttons and dices weighing around 8kg, a marble statute of a cow weighing around 30kg, and around 800 pieces of broken artefacts.

Rab sources said on secret information a team led by Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) M Siraj Amin raided a flat in Nanda Jagannathpur area of Badda and recovered some artefacts.

The Rab arrested Sarwar Mollah, 45, Gopal Chandra Biswas, 40, and Newton Sarkar, 20, at the house.

On Sarwar's information the Rab raided another house in the area and recovered more items of archaeological value and arrested one Soleman Mollah, 40.

Earlier on November 9, the Rab arrested Md Abdul Jalil at a house in Uttara on allegation of smuggling artefacts made of touchstone.

Upon Jalil's confessions, another Rab team conducted a raid in Natore the same night and arrested Khadem Ali and Bali Ram, two members of the smuggling ring.

The Rab said legal actions have been taken against the arrestees.