Dhaka Metropolitan Police have arrested nine people and recovered two truckloads of looted property following an attack on a private healthcare centre in the capital’s Mirpur 1 section on Thursday night.

Police confirmed the update in a brief statement, after reporting four arrests the previous day.

The attack targeted the Radda MCH-FP Centre, which has used the site since 1976. Those concerned said the private organisation obtained the land through an agreement with the government’s health ministry.

In a case filed at Shah Ali Police Station in Dhaka, the centre’s executive director, Dr Nasrin Akhter, claimed that the organisation had used the land for nearly 50 years under a government contract. The attack, vandalism and looting allegedly caused total losses of BDT 10.9 million.

The case names one Hanif Mia alongside 200 to 250 unidentified people as accused. After the attack, miscreants hung a banner on the facility’s wall bearing the name “Samamona Dokandar Samobay Samity Limited”.

Two local factions of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party have blamed each other over the incident.

Police said that whoever the criminals were, they would be brought under the law regardless of their political affiliation.