Retired member of housing authority sued for grabbing plot through forgery

Anti- Corruption Commission (ACC) on Tuesday filed a case against a former member of the National Housing Authority (NHA) for grabbing a plot in the capital’s Mirpur area through forgery.

ACC headquarters’ deputy director Hafizul Islam filed the case with the anti-graft body’s Dhaka-1 coordinated office against Badiul Alam, who is now retired.

The plot was actually allotted to a certain Fazlul Haque Chowdhury by the housing authority in 1994. He paid the money in four instalments but died in January 1996 before the property was handed over to him. The NHA kept Fazlul Haque’s children waiting instead of handing over the land to them.

When the inheritors got frustrated with the matter, they applied to the housing authority for allotting an alternative plot to them in May 2005. At that time, Badiul introduced them with a Masud Karim to grab the plot making fake papers. Badiul Alam was a member of the National Housing Authority (Administration and Finance) and member (Land) from 13 March 2005 to 26 December 2007. Masud Karim was made the power-of-attorney to take legal actions about that plot.

The ACC investigation showed, the NHA discussed about the plot in its 48th Board Meeting on 31 October 2017 and decided to allot an alternative plot at Block B of Section 6 of Mirpur to Fazlul Haque's children.

The investigation also revealed that the attorney Masud Karim was none but the husband of Badiul Alam’s sister. Then, Badiul Alam bought the plot with fake papers from his brother-in-law at Tk 2.41 million and handed it over to Khan Properties A7 Developer for construction of a multi-storey building.

Khan Properties provided six flats to the accused as per the condition. The accused sold the flats too.