ACC approves charge sheet against Samrat partner Zakir

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has approved a charge sheet against Zakir Hossain, a close aide and business partner of expelled Jubo League leader Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat, for illegally amassing around Tk5.85 crore.

The charge sheet was approved in a regular meeting of the ACC on Sunday. 

According to sources, ACC Assistant Director M Saiful Islam will soon submit the charge sheet at court.

On November 13, 2019, the ACC filed a case against Zakir, also a former Jubo League leader, for illegally amassing wealth.

According to case dockets, the ACC found out that Zakir had earned money from various illegal businesses, including casinos. He has several houses, plots and flats both in Bangladesh and abroad.

Zakir is the one who had bought the fourth floor of Bhuiyan Trade Center in Dhaka’s Kakrail, which was used by casino kingpin Samrat as his office. Other floors of the building were occupied jointly by Samrat and Zakir. 

Who is Zakir?

According to Jubo League sources, Zakir's family left Barisal and moved to Dhaka in 1974 for a better life. He grew up in Dhaka’s Chanpara slum in Demra.

In 1991, Zakir took a job as a hotel boy at a restaurant called “Payal” in Kakrail with a daily salary of Tk30.

Later, he quit that job and joined “Tony Film” – based on the third floor Faridpur Mansion in Kakrail – as a peon with a salary of Tk2,000 a month. 

During the early 1990’s, many Awami League leaders and activists used to sit for regular meetings at Hotel Maradona, located right below the Faridpur Mansion in Kakrail where Zakir started working. 

One day, Zakir met with Samrat and expressed his interest in working with and for him. This led to the two becoming very close friends. 

On December 18, 2019, the ACC filed a lawsuit against Zakir’s wife Ayesha Akhter Suma on charges of amassing an illegal wealth of over Tk4 crore.

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested Zakir from Charnoabad in Sadar upazila of Bhola on October 30 last year.