Islami Bank suspends 8 top officials

S Alam Group-controlled private Islami Bank Bangladesh Plc has suspended eight officials from the top level amid growing pressure from the bank officials following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government.

The suspended officials are additional managing director JQM Habibullah, deputy managing directors Md. Akij Uddin, Mohammad Sabbir, Miftah Uddin, Kazi Md. Rezaul Karim and Md. Abdullah Al Mamun, chief anti money laundering compliance officer (CAMLCO) Taher Ahmed Chowdhury and Training Institute principal Nazrul Islam.

The suspended officials are known to be close to S Alam Group owner Saiful Alam. DMD Akij Uddin is also a personal secretary to Saiful Alam. Akij Uddin and Miftah Uddin supervised human resources and loan distribution at the bank.

Since the fall of the previous government, bank officials have been demonstrating to ‘make the bank free from S Alam and people from Patia’, demanding the dissolution of the board of directors and trial of the officials involved in loan irregularities.

Besides, 10,000 officials from Saiful Alam’s Patia upazila in Chattogram, who were appointed over the last seven years, could not join the office since the fall of the government.

However, managing director Mohammed Monirul Moula joined the office on Sunday and Monday, which was followed by the decisions to suspend those officials.

One of the suspended officials told Prothom Alo he received the letter of suspension today, Monday, and it was dated Sunday.

Managing director Mohammed Monirul Moula did not respond to phone calls for a comment.

Once Islami Bank was way ahead in collecting local deposits or foreign currencies due to the people’s reliability on it. It grew so large that Bangladesh Bank would say - if the Islami Bank faces any crisis, that would create a “systemic risk” in the whole sector, which will be tough to prevent.

But the situation started to change from 2017. Because of the government’s political decision that year to “free Islami Bank from the grip of Jamaat”, S Alam Group, close to the immediate past Awami League government, took control of the bank.

Since then this business conglomerate and Nabil Group from Rajshahi have taken out Tk 500 billion through known and anonymous persons and entities in seven and a half years. The amount is one-third of the bank’s total loans.

No rules were followed to withdraw this money. The bank’s officials believe that the actual amount of money laundered from the bank is higher than the loan information available so far.