Wife of technical board chair arrested for certificate business 

The police have arrested Shehela Parvin, wife of technical education board chairman Ali Akbar Khan, for her alleged engagement with certificate business. 

The detective branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) detained her on Saturday afternoon. Following primary interrogation, they showed her arrested in a case filed under the Cyber Security Act (CSA) on allegations of selling certificates. 

According to the DB sources, Shehela Parvin confessed to receiving Tk 300,000 from the director of Gorai Polytechnical Institute in Kushtia, Sanjida Akhtar alias Koli. The money was delivered by AKM Shamsuzzaman, a system analyst engineer at the technical education board who was arrested earlier on charges of printing and selling fake certificates.

However, Shehela claimed during the interrogation that the money was not a bribe, rather it was borrowed.

Harun-or-Rashid, additional commissioner of DMP (DB), told Prothom Alo that ATM Shamsuzzaman, the prime accused in the case, and his associate Sanjida Akter made confessional statements and it prompted the police to take Shehela Parvin to their custody for interrogation on Saturday afternoon. 

The detectives found proof of transactions between Shehela and Shamsuzzaman. Apart from the trio, Foisal Hossain, a former staff and current computerman at Shamsuzzaman’s certificate printing factory, Sardar Golam Mostafa, principal of Hilful Fuzul technical institute, and Maksudur Rahman, director of Dhaka polytechnic institute at Jatrabari, have been arrested, while some of them are now on remand.  

The DB sources said Shamsuzzaman confessed to providing money to Shehela Parvin on multiple occasions. Some senior officials of the technical education board, journalists, anti-corruption commission (ACC) officials, college principals, and directors received shares of the money earned from the certificate business. 

During interrogation, Shehela Parvin claimed she had no direct acquaintance with Shamsuzzaman. Sanjida Akter developed a good relationship with her following phone calls and meet ups.

Later, she introduced Shamsuzzaman and asked Shehela to recommend for his promotion to the senior scale. However, Shehela clarified that her husband does not care about her recommendations. 

Shehela further said she sought a sum of money from Sanjida in loan and made a promise to return it in installments. Shamsuzzaman delivered the money to her residence in the capital’s Uttara area. 

It was learned that Shamsuzzaman was involved in producing fake certificates, registration cards, and number sheets. Principals and directors of various colleges used to contact him for fake certificates and he would supply those certificates for Tk 35,000 to 50,000 each. 

Shamsuzzaman joined the education board as a system analyst in 2009 and served in the board’s computer cell until 2017.  

According to the sources, he in collusion with other accused had been producing fake certificates, mark sheets, registration, and admit cards and uploading those on the education board’s website since 2015. He was transferred to the inspection cell in 2017, following an allegation of fraud.

During his tenure he used to take care of the all digitalisation and computerisation activities of the education board, in addition to preparing millions of students' documents, uploading those on the server, and subsequent verification.