BOGURA, Bangladesh — A case has been filed against Mahmudur Rahman Mannah, president of Nagorik Oikya, and six other people over an alleged attempt to reschedule a defaulted loan using forged signatures of a fugitive cold-storage executive.
Businessman Millat Hossain of Gopalpur village in Khanpur union of Bogura’s Sherpur upazila recently filed the case at Bogura’s vacation senior special judge’s court.
Senior Special Judge Shahjahan Kabir accepted the case and, after reviewing the documents and initial information, directed the Anti-Corruption Commission’s Bogura integrated office to take necessary legal action.
The complainant’s lawyer Abdul Wahab and ACC Bogura integrated office deputy director Mahfuz Iqbal confirmed the case on Thursday afternoon.
The accused are Islami Bank Bangladesh PLC head office chairman Dr. M Zubaidur Rahman; managing director Omar Faruque Khan; head office in-charge Mahmud Hossain Khan; deputy managing director Mohammad Sayed Ullah; Bogura zonal branch in-charge Sikdar Shahabuddin; Bangladesh Bank head office director (BRPD) and member secretary of the policy support selection committee Bayazid Sarkar; and Afaku Cold Storage Ltd. chairman Mahmudur Rahman Mannah, who is also Nagorik Oikya’s president.
Five people, including the cold storage’s fugitive managing director and Awami League leader A.B.M. Nazmul Kadir Shahjahan Chowdhury and his wife, director Ismat Ara Laizu, are named as witnesses.
In the complaint, the plaintiff alleged that the accused are engaged in forgery, fraud and unlawful activity. A bilateral agreement was signed between the complainant and the two witnesses, Nazmul Kadir Chowdhury and Ismat Ara Laizu, valuing the movable and immovable assets of Mannah’s Afaku Cold Storage Ltd. at 250 million taka and agreeing to their sale. The witnesses received 100 million taka on the day of signing and pledged to pay the remaining 150 million taka at the time of loan repayment. They also agreed to the transfer of assets.
It later emerged that the witnesses, Nazmul Kadir Shahjahan Chowdhury and his wife Ismat Ara Laizu, left for the United States on Aug. 19 last year. While they were in hiding, Mannah forged their signatures to create a fake board resolution dated Dec. 1, in which a decision was taken to reschedule 380 million taka in defaulted loans, the complaint said.
The accused presented the forged resolution as legitimate, submitting it to Bangladesh Bank and Islami Bank to apply for the loan rescheduling. In collusion, they then attempted to obtain approval for the rescheduling in violation of Bangladesh Bank policy and through false documentation, the complaint said.
The case, filed on Dec. 11, said the accused had been issued a ‘call back notice’ from Islami Bank’s Bogura Borogola branch for repayment of 384 million 476 thousand taka in defaulted loans.
The notice said legal action would be taken if the dues were not settled by Dec. 18. Even so, the accused are continuing their attempt to reschedule the loans using forged papers.
Speaking on Thursday afternoon, complainant’s lawyer Abdul Wahab said the cold storage’s managing director, A.B.M. Nazmul Kadir Shahjahan Chowdhury, who is vice president of the Shibganj upazila Awami League, fled with his wife Ismat Ara Laizu after the political change on Aug. 5. Even so, their presence was shown on paperwork bearing forged signatures, in an attempt to reschedule 380 million taka in defaulted loans, prompting the case, Wahab said.
ACC Bogura integrated office deputy director Mahfuz Iqbal said a copy of the court order reached his office on Wednesday. On Thursday, the order, along with the case documents, was sent to the ACC’s head office in Dhaka. Source: Jugantor.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report