PK Halder to stay in Indian jail for 43 more days

A Kolkata Court on Wednesday ordered to keep six people, including erstwhile NRB Global Bank’s former managing director Prashanta Kumar Halder alias PK Halder in jail till September 22 in a money laundering case.

The six accused were produced before a special court meant for cases of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Kolkata, according to Bangladeshi and Indian media reports.

During the hearing, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) submitted a 4,000 pages case history before the court.

After the court’s hearing, ED’s lawyer Arijit Chakraborty told reporters that there is no new progress in the case. The defence lawyers also have no question about the charge sheet which was submitted against them.

The court ordered to produce the six arrested people including PK Halder before the court on September 22, he added. Earlier, on July 14, ED, the Indian’s financial intelligence agency, submitted a charge-sheet against six people, including PK Halder and two agencies in the case.

The other charge-sheeted 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.

PK Halder, the mastermind of a Tk 10, 000 crore banking scam in Bangladesh, fled the country in 2019. He was arrested by the ED along with five other Bangladeshis in Ashoknagar of West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district on May 14.

He had been staying in West Bengal impersonating himself as an Indian citizen named Shibshankar Halder after fraudulently obtaining various government identities like ration card from West Bengal, Indian voter ID card, Permanent Account Number and multi-purpose Aadhar card.

After their arrest, they were placed on remand by the Kolkata court in several phases following petitions of the ED in the case.

During investigation, the ED found wealth worth Tk 300 crore and 88 bank accounts of PK Halder and his associates in India. It also found seven luxurious flats and 40 properties in Malaysia.

A number of cases were also filed against PK Halder and his associates in Bangladesh on charges of embezzling and laundering money.

Bangladesh is trying to bring PK Halder back to the country under the bilateral extradition treaty signed in 2016 with India.