ACC director, 3 others summoned for imprisoning wrong person

The High Court has summoned a director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and three other government officials to explain why a person named Jahlam, instead of the real accused, had been in jail for the past three years.

According to news agency UNB, the four summoned officials were a representative selected by the ACC director, representatives from home and law ministries and plaintiff of the cases.

A bench of justice FRM Nazmul Ahasan and justice KM Kamrul Kader on Monday passed the suo moto order following a newspaper report published by Prothom Alo under the headline "Wrong accused in jail in 33 cases: Sir, I am Jahlam, not Salek."

Supreme Court lawyer Amit Das Gupta placed the news report before the High Court.

The court also issued a rule seeking explanation as to why the wrong accused will not be excused from the case and why measures will not be taken to free him from jail.

Secretaries of home ministry, law ministry, ACC chairman, ACC DG (law), plaintiff of case, National Human Right Commission Chairman, IG prison, managing director of Sonali Bank were asked to respond to the rule.
The report said Jahlam, a jute factory worker, has been serving in jail in place of real accused Abu Salek in 33 cases of embezzling Tk 180 million from Sonali Bank.

Jahlam's will be completing three years in jail on 6 February and now ACC's investigation found Jahlam innocent in one case and he secured bail in one case while waiting to get bail in rest of the cases.

The whole thing started five years back when a letter of ACC reached Jahlam's house in Tangail asking him to appear before it at 9:30am on 18 December, 2014.

The letter also said Jahlam has embezzled Tk 180 million from Sonali Bank using fake voucher.