Cheque fraud: Playing the victim game
Four members of a Chattogram working class family have been framed in 10 cheque dishonoured cases by one of their relatives.
Nine of the cases claimed that cheques for Tk 3 million had been dishonoured while another said a cheque for Tk 3 million was dishonoured.
Md Morshed filed the cases in 2015 and the accused were sentenced to different terms in eight of the cases in 2016 and 2017. Two other cases are still pending.
The accused Rezia Begum and her three children Farhana Sultana, Sabrina Sultana and Syed Abdul Dayan have been on the run since 2017.
Rezia told Prothom Alo that Morshed, who is the son of her husband's younger sister, had filed the cases due to a family dispute. Her husband is a day labourer working for the port while their son works for a private firm as a sales executive. The daughters have only completed graduation and higher secondary level.
“We had no clue about the cheque fraud cases. We don’t even have any bank accounts. My husband is a labourer whose daily income is Tk 300-400. We only live from hand to mouth,” Rezia said.
The lawyer of the accused, Saidur Rahman, said, "The plaintiff presented the cases by forging papers in such a way that they seemed authentic to the court. But how can a labourer’s family be factory owners to the court?"
Morshed while filing the case showed the accused as owners of Sunrise Textile Mills Limited, but they were in no way related to the organisation, Prothom Alo investigations have found.
Also, the plaintiff provided two different addresses of him in the case details.
According to the court documents, the four accused were present at the hearing in metropolitan magistrate's court on 28 October 2016.
Rezia Begum told Prothom Alo that she and her children neither attended the court nor did they know anything about it.
The four people who were present at the court at the time might be cohorts of the plaintiff, said bar association president Iftekhar Saimul.
“It is undoubtedly a false case. The accused have no connection with the fraud at all. We are looking for the lawyers of the plaintiff. We doubt they are fake lawyers,” Iftekhar added.
The Prothom Alo correspondent came to know that the cheques were for an account with Momin Road branch of Brac Bank Limited with serial numbers from CBL-469216 to CBL-469225.
When the lawyer for the accused sent a letter to the branch manager to verify whether or not the cheques were issued in the name of the accused, the manager replied officially that the account did not belong to the mentioned people (accused).
When asked, the branch manager of Brac Bank told Prothom Alo, “We will provide necessary documents if the court orders any investigation.”
However, Morshed claimed, “The accused gave me those cheques and I filed the cases as the cheques were dishonoured. The accused can go to the high court if they think they were denied justice.”