A Dhaka court on Sunday fixed February 24 for submitting the probe report in an embezzlement case filed against former DSCC mayor Sayeed Khokon and six others.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Shohidul Islam fixed the date as Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) did not submit the probe report before the court on Sunday.
The other accused in the case are former chief revenue officer of the DSCC, Yusuf Ali Sarker, and former deputy assistant engineers Majed, Kamrul Hasan, Helena Akter, Atikur Rahman Swapan, and Walid.
On December 29, 2020, Delwar Hossain Delu, president of the shop owners’ association of Gulistan’s Phulbaria City Supermarket 2, filed the case against seven accused with the court of Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate.
Delwar alleged that Khokon and the six accused took around Tk34,89,70,575 from him and other traders in the name of allocating shops at Phulbaria City Supermarket’s Block A between June 21, 2015, and September 29, 2019.
Later Delu found out, they did not allocate the shops.
After recording the case statements of the complainant, Metropolitan Magistrate Ashek Imam directed the PBI to investigate the case and submit a probe report before the court.
However, ignoring huge political pressure, DSCC authorities had launched a large-scale eviction drive against illegally set up shops at city markets, including Phulbaria, amid protests of shop owners and employees earlier this month.
Responding to the news of the case, Sayeed Khokon on December 29 alleged that his successor, DSCC Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, coerced Delwar into filing the case.
“Taposh is making Delu do this filthiness,” Khokon said, according to an SMS his personal secretary, Habibul Islam Suman, had sent to journalists.
“This is tarnishing my and my party’s [Awami League] image,” read the SMS.
