Regent’s Shahed arrested again

Md Shahed, also known as Shahed Karim of Regent Hospital, who was sent to jail over allegations of fraud in Covid sample testing, has been arrested by police again.

Officer-in-charge (OC) of Cantonment police station Md Rakibul Hasan said that Shahed was arrested from the ECB Chattar area of the capital on Monday afternoon. He said an arrest warrant had been issued against Shahed in a case. The OC added that Shahed was arrested following a request from Pallabi police station and was subsequently handed over to the Pallabi police.

Shahed faced 35 cases filed against him, including allegations of fraud and acquiring assets beyond his known sources of income. He was granted bail in all of the cases one by one. Nearly four years after securing bail, he was released from prison on 4 September 2024, a month after the 2024 mass uprising.

Shahed' s name came into the spotlight during the pandemic. On 7 July 2020, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) conducted a raid on Regent Hospital in Uttara. Md Shahed was serving as the chairman of the hospital at the time. Fake Covid test reports were seized from the hospital. Following the incident, RAB filed a case at Uttara West Police Station against Shahed and 17 others, accusing them of fraud involving Covid certificates.

Nine days after the case was filed, on 15 July, RAB arrested Shahed from a border area in Satkhira. The agency later conducted a raid in Uttara with him and recovered firearms. Subsequently, multiple cases were filed against Shahed over various allegations of fraud.

On 28 September 2020, a court sentenced Shahed to life imprisonment in an arms case. He appealed the verdict before the High Court. On 11 January 2024, the High Court accepted his appeal and acquitted Shahed. However, on 14 January, the Chamber Court of the Appellate Division stayed the High Court's judgment.

In another case involving the acquisition of assets beyond his known sources of income, a court sentenced Shahed to three years' imprisonment on 21 August 2023. Fourteen years earlier, in 2010, he had also been sentenced to six months in prison in a cheque fraud case.

Among the 35 cases filed against Shahed, one was also under the Money Laundering Prevention Act. In its report on the case, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) said that Shahed had embezzled more than Tk 1.1 billion by deceiving people.

At Regent Hospital, he collected Tk 31.19 million by issuing fake certificates without conducting Covid tests. Beyond this, many of his other fraudulent schemes were described as "innovative" and unusual.