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A Kolkata court on Tuesday ordered to keep six people including NRB Global Bank’s former managing director Prashant Kumar Halder alias PK Halder in judicial custody for another 14 days for interrogation in a money laundering case.
Judge Jeevan Kumar Sadhu of the special court under the Kolkata Municipal Court of West Bengal passed
the order after Directorate of Enforcement (ED) produced the six before the court on completion of their 14 days interrogation at the jail custody, according to Bangladeshi and Indian media reports.
The other accused are PK Halder’s brother Pranesh Kumar Halder, Swapan Mistry alias Swapan Maitra, Uttam Mistry alias Uttam Maitra, Imam Hossain alias Imon Halder and Amana Sultana alias Sharmi.
The court also asked to produce the accused before the court on July 5 after the two weeks fresh interrogation at the custody.
This was the fourth time, the Prevention of Money Laundering Act court extended Halder’s remand since his arrest on May 14 under the PMLA of 2002. Earlier, on June 7, the court placed the six accused on remand for 14 days at the jail custody.
During an earlier hearing in the court, ED told the court that they found wealth worth Tk 300 crore and 88 bank accounts of PK Halder and his associates in India. It has also found seven luxurious flats and 40 properties in Malaysia
PK Halder, the mastermind of a Tk 10,000 crore banking scam in Bangladesh, fled from Bangladesh in 2019. He was arrested by the ED along with five other Bangladeshis in Ashoknagar of West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.
He acquired real estate properties in West Bengal by posing as an Indian citizen. The ED said Halder and his associates had fraudulently obtained various official documents, including West Bengal’s ration cards, Indian voter IDs, and PAN and Aaadhaar cards.
A case was filed against six including a woman, under the 2002 law for smuggling money into India from Bangladesh. PK Halder and his associates invested these funds in various businesses and purchased property in India’s West Bengal.
Meanwhile, a number of cases were also filed in Bangladesh against PK Halder and his associates on charges of embezzling and laundering money.
The Bangladesh government is trying to bring Halder back under the bilateral extradition treaty signed in 2016.
However, after a recent meeting with Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, Indian High Commissioner Vikram Doraiswami said it might take time to hand Halder over to Bangladesh and legal procedures would be followed in this regard.
