Home ›› 25 Aug 2022 ›› Governance
The High Court on Wednesday granted conditional bail to Sharmin Ahmed and Tania Ahmed, daughters of People’s Leasing and Finance Company Director Khabir Uddin, who were arrested in a money embezzlement case.
Khabir Uddin is a key accomplice of Prashant Kumar Halder, former managing director of NRB Global Bank and Reliance Finance Limited, infamous for the largest scam in the country’s bank and financial sector.
The RAB arrested Sharmin Ahmed, 42, and Taniya Ahmed, 37, were arrested in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi and Shamoly areas early Wednesday before their departure for Canada. They embezzled Tk 66 crore of People’s Leasing and Finance Company.
The High Court bench of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar passed the order after the Rapid Action Battalion produced them before the court.
RAB’s Additional Superintendent of Police Kairul Islam confirmed the matter and said that the court granted the duo bail on some conditions including submission of passports or national identity cards of 11 members of Khabir Uddin’s family including the duo.
The court also directed the duo to deposit Tk 10 crore to the board of directors of People’s Leasing within 30 days, said Addl SP Kairul Islam.
RAB’s Legal and Media wing director Commander Khandaker Al Moin said that the siblings embezzled Tk 66 crore from the company in the name of taking a loan.
He said Sharmin and Taniya’s father Khabir Uddin worked for the company as director since its inception till 2010. During the period, he embezzled about Tk 200 crore in the name of taking loans in the names of his family members.
“Sharmin and Taniya used to live in Canada for a decade and they took loans of Tk 32 and Tk 34 respectively from the company through their father’s involvement and did not pay back the amount,” he said at a press briefing.
Moin said that the High Court asked the loan defaulters to pay back the money and appear before the court. “Several people ignored the court directive and the court ordered us to arrest them and produce them before it and we complied,” he said.
“Sharmin and Taniya come to Dhaka on July 28 and were scheduled to leave for Canada today (Wednesday) violating the court instruction,” he said.
PK Halder embezzled about Tk 3,500 crore from four non-bank financial institutions, according to a BB probe report, but later the ACC found he embezzled more than Tk 10,200 crore, taken as loans from the NBFIs, using the names of at least 30 entities. He then laundered much of that amount to Canada, Singapore and India.NBFIs.
In 2019, he escaped from Bangladesh to India and later moved to Canada.
However, the Enforcement Directorate of India arrested PK Halder and five of his associates on charges of illegal entry and residence, anonymous purchase of property and illegal transfer of money from Bangladesh to India.
