A Dhaka court has placed Abantika Boral, an alleged girlfriend of Prashanta Kumar Halder alias PK Halder, on a 3-day remand in connection with a money laundering case.
Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge KM Imrul Kayes passed the order on Wednesday after the investigation officer prayed for three days' remand in this case.
Earlier in the day, a team of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) led by Deputy Director Md Salauddin arrested Abantika Boral from the capital's Dhanmondi area.
After being arrested, Abantika was produced before the court where the ACC sought three days' remand to interrogate her and the court granted the ACC prayer.
Earlier on December 20, 2020, ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan revealed that information of around 70-80 girlfriends of swindling sultan PK Halder was found by the anti-graft body.
PK Halder’s money was transferred to his girlfriends’ bank accounts too and they may also be brought under investigation, he said, adding that charges will be framed against those girlfriends if they are found guilty and it depends on investigation.
Director (public relations) of the ACC Pranab Kumar Bhattachariya told The Business Post that the ACC earlier summoned Abantika to be present at the ACC headquarter on December 28. But she didn't comply with the ACC request and didn't even cite any personal reason for not to appearing at the ACC, which is a punishable crime.
"The ACC believes that Abantika Boral is one of the cohorts of PK Halder for hiding and possessing illegal wealth embezzled from different financial institutions by Halder and that she also benefitted from Halder by maintaining an intimate relationship with him," said Pranab Kumar Bhattachariya.
The ACC on January 2020 filed a case against PK Halder over the allegations of acquiring illegal wealth worth 274.91 crore taka earned through misappropriating money from different financial institutions.
An ACC investigation so far revealed that PK Halder, who is now residing in Canada, acquired massive amounts of wealth in home and abroad which could total around 10,000 crore taka.
Meanwhile, on January 8 this year, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) issued a red notice against PK Halder after Bangladesh Police on January 4 requested Interpol to issue the alert against him.
A red notice alerts police worldwide about internationally wanted fugitives, but it is not an arrest warrant.
The notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action, Interpol says.
However, such notices help bring fugitives to justice, sometimes many years after the original crime was committed. And Interpol issued 13,377 red notices in 2019.
Earlier on December 3, 2020, the High Court said that all the corrupt figures and money launderers including PK Halder must be brought to justice no matter how influential they are.
sh-nh/teb
