5 AL lawmakers, ex-bank chairman, secy arrested

Five former Awami League lawmakers, ex-chairman of Exim Bank, and a former secretary were arrested yesterday.
Rab and Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested them from Dhaka and Chattogram as they were accused in various cases, including for murders.
The five ex-MPs are Abdus Salam Murshedy for Khulna-4, Ekramul Karim Chowdhury for Noakhali- 4, Mahbub Ara Begun Gini for Gaibandha-2, Abdullah Al Islam Jakob for Bhola-4, and Abdur Rouf of Kushtia-4.
Murshedy was held at Bashundhara in Dhaka, Ekramul in Chattogram, and Gini was arrested at Dhanmondi.
A DB team arrested former EXIM Bank chairman Nazrul Islam Mazumder at Gulshan.
“He was accused in several cases. We will decide in which cases he will be shown arrested,” said Rezaul Karim Mallick, additional commissioner (DB) of the DMP.
Following the ouster of Awami League government, Bangladesh Bank reconstituted the board of directors of EXIM Bank, bringing an end to the era of the financial institution’s influential chairman Mazumder, also the founder of Nassa Group.
A close ally of the AL government, Mazumder had been serving the private bank owners’ forum — Bangladesh Association of Banks (BAB) — since 2009.
Mazumder used his position as BAB chairman to change critical banking policies in favour of his businesses and took loans bypassing the rules and regulations, according to the people with knowledge of the matter.
Detectives held ex-home secretary Jahangir Alam from the capital’s Gulshan area.
Jahangir was sent into forced retirement on August 14. He had also served as the secretary to the Election Commission.
After the arrest, the DMP, in a message, said Jahangir was the architecture of the 2024 “dummy election”.
Meanwhile, different Dhaka courts placed Gini, Jakob, and Jahangir on three-day, five-day, and five-day remand respectively.