A Chittagong court yesterday sentenced three men, including two former officials of Bangladesh Post Office, to five years’ rigorous imprisonment on charge of working in collusion with each other to misappropriate the fixed deposit of a dead person.
The three were Nurul Absar, former assistant postmaster of Cox’s Bazar district post office, Nur Mohammad, former postal and letter operator of the post office, and Md Kaiser, younger brother of the deceased owner of the account.
The court also fined the convicts Tk5,000 each and said they would be serving six more months in jail in default.
The court of Chittagong Divisional Special Judge SM Ataur Rahman passed the order as the charge against the accused was proved beyond any doubt, said Advocate Mezbah Uddin, prosecutor of the court.
Another accused Rafiqul Amin, former postal operator of the post office, was acquitted as the allegation against him could not be proved, court sources said.
The Cox’s Bazar district magistrate was ordered to take Tk30 lakh from Kaiser and hand it over to Nurul’s family, added Mezbah.
Of the convicts, Kaiser is on the run while the other two were sent to Chittagong Central Jail following the pronouncement of the verdict.
According to case documents, late Nurul Alam, a resident of Cox’s Bazar Sadar, had a fixed deposit of Tk30 lakh at Cox’s Bazar district post office.
Kaiser, however, withdrew the money by presenting fake documents on the account’s nominee after Nurul’s death collaborated with the connivance of Nurul and Nur.
Deputy Assistant Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission Khalilur Rahaman lodged a case with Cox’s Bazar Sadar police station on May 27, 2011, against four men in this connection. The charge sheet of the case was submitted on January 27, 2012.
On July 4 last year, the court indicted the four accused under Sections 409 and 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.