Farmers Bank MD AKM Shamim and five other officials were interrogated by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Wednesday over a Tk4 crore loan scandal.
The questioning began at the ACC’s Segunbagicha office around 10am, where the six were summoned by a letter signed by ACC Director Syed Iqbal Hossain.
The five other officials of the bank are: former manager (operations) and vice-president Lutful Haque, First Vice-President Swapan Kumar Roy, Senior Executive Vice-President Gazi Salahuddin, Assistant Vice-President Shafiuddin Askari Ahmed, and Executive Officer Umme Salma Sultana.
Earlier, on May 6, ACC interrogated Tangail school teacher Md Shahjahan and farmer Niranjan Chandra Saha, who each borrowed Tk2 crore from the bank’s Gulshan branch in Dhaka. Later, the money was sent to the account of a state VIP at the High Court branch of Sonali Bank from two accounts.
After the interrogation, Shahjahan told reporters: “The ACC called us in because we took loans of Tk2 crore each from the Farmers Bank. We gave the money to Ranjit Babu, who is a friend of mine. I don’t know whom he gave the money to. I mortgaged Ranjit’s land to get the money.”
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Niranjan, who identified himself as Ranjit Babu’s nephew, said: “Ranjit is my uncle, and is a farmer. He told me he retrieved the loan. I don’t know anything else.”
A related source said the state VIP sold a house in Dhaka’s Uttara area to a woman named Shanti Roy in 2016, whose husband Ranjit was the personal secretary of former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. Shahjahan and Niranjan mortgaged Ranjit’s land and took the Tk4 crore loan in order to pay off the price of the house.
However, according to ACC sources, there were irregularities in the processing of the loan, and their officials are currently investigating the matter.
The anti-graft watchdog is also investigating why Niranjan and Shahjahan took loans on Ranjit’s behalf.
