Sur Chowdhury, Shah Alam barred from leaving country

A court in Dhaka has banned eight people, including the former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, SK Sur Chowdhury, and the bank’s present executive director Shah Alam, from leaving the country.

Dhaka's Senior Special Judge KM Imrul Kayes passed the ban order on Thursday. After that, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) took the order to the special superintendent of police (immigration).

The six others facing the ban are SK Sur Chowdhury's wife Suparna Sur Chowdhury, Shah Alam's two wives Shaheen Akter and Nasreen Begum, People's Leasing AVP Al Mamun Sohag, manager (treasury) Aveek Sinha and PK Haldar's associate Atasi Mridha.

The court issued the ban following a petition filed by ACC deputy director Md Gulshan Anwar Pradhan. The petition stated that these eight people are involved in embezzling and laundering Tk 30 billion (3,000 crore) of International Leasing And Financial Services Limited directly or indirectly. They might flee the country. It is thus necessary to ban their travelling for the sake of investigation.

According to ACC sources, these eight people including SK Sur Chowdhury and Shah Alam are among the close associates of the fugitive managing director of Reliance Finance and NRB Global Bank, PK Haldar, who face allegation of embezzling millions of taka from four finance institutions. And for that, SK Sur Chowdhury and Shah Alam received regular shares.

The court has barred 52 people from leaving the country in three phases and the ACC has arrested 12 people over the PK Haldar’s scam so far.