A Dhaka court yesterday issued an arrest warrant against five people, including BNP’s Dhaka city convener Mirza Abbas, on charges of causing a loss of around Tk15.52 crore to the government through allocation of land to journalists.
Senior Special Judge KM Imrul Kayes ordered to issue the arrest warrant against the five absconding accused, after taking cognizance of the charges.
The court also ordered the OCs of different police stations concerned to submit progress reports on their execution of the arrest warrants before the court by March 25.
The other accused are former state minister for housing and public works and BNP leader Alamgir Kabir, former joint secretary Bijon Kanti Sarker, National Housing Authority (NHA) office assistant Md Matiar Rahman, and NHA cashier Md Mansur Alam.
Deputy Director Jatan Kumar Roy of the Anti-Corruption Commission, also the investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet against the five accused to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court on February 16. The charge sheet lists 21 people as prosecution witnesses in the case.
Jatan also appealed for the discharge of Md Azharul Haque, former deputy director (land), from the charges as the allegations brought against him were not proven during the investigation.
On March 6 last year, Jatan Kumar Roy filed a case against Alamgir Kabir and three others for reportedly causing loss to the government of around Tk15.52crore in allocating land to journalists at a lower rate. According to the case, in 2002, Alamgir sent a letter to the then prime minister, Khaleda Zia, with a request to build a housing area for journalists, writers, artists, and cultural activists without receiving any application from them.
After receiving the letter, Khaleda reportedly sent a letter to the housing and public works secretary, asking him to take steps as per the rules. While the matter was under process, Alamgir directed the secretary to allocate land from a previously designed housing area.
Without taking permission from the ministry, the accused NHA officials allocated seven acres of land in the capital’s Mirpur area to the Dhaka Journalists Cooperatives Limited at only Tk3.39crore against a market value of Tk19crore, thereby violating the amended Housing Policy 1993.