Ashwin 10, 1421 Zilqad 29, 1435 Regd No DA 6238 Vol 2, No 174
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION
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7 | JURIS
11 | OP-ED
B1 | BUSINESS
KNOCK ON THE ROOF
EVERYTHING IS FAKE
20.48 LAKH BALES JUTE PRODUCED IN NORTHERN DISTRICTS
Fake money circulated by dishonest bank officials
Party posts were like magic lamps for many Chhatra League leaders. Here is the second of a series of three reports
General good fortune n Ahmed Zayeef Chhatra League General Secretary Siddique Nazmul Alam is known by the name Debu to neighbours. He comes from a lower middle-class family in Pathalia in Jamalpur. Our correspondent has earlier reported that Nazmul had been constructing a three-storey building at his village home, which used to be a brickwalled tin-shed one-storey house. A neighbour said Nazmul’s father was now the operation-in-charge of the Dewanganj Food Depot in Jamalpur.
Nazmul got licence for two firearms last year as a ‘special person of the state’ He used to be a fourth class employee of the government but things changed dramatically after his son became the general secretary of the ruling party’s student front. When asked, Nazmul told the Dhaka Tribune over phone that his father had begun constructing the house in 1992 and finished it in 2010. The house was given a coat of paint only very recently, which was why it looked new, he explained. However, a central leader of Chhatra League claimed that he had been to Nazmul’s house and saw a new two-storey building.
Luxury flats in Dhaka
Nazmul himself now lives in a flat in the capital’s posh Paribagh area, for which he pays Tk50,000 rent. Caretaker Kamal Pasha said it was a duplex flat
n Mohammad Jamil Khan
A group of unscrupulous officials from both private and state-owned banks are allegedly working in cahoots with money counterfeiters to help circulate fake notes inside the banking system. Counterfeiters reportedly pay large sums of money to management-level banking staffs to insert the counterfeit currencies inside ATM machines and bank lockers, which ensures that the fake notes are put to circulation without arousing suspicion. The new technique that has been adopted by money counterfeiting gangs came to light after the arrest of Shambhunath Sarker, a former Sonali Bank cashier, in the capital last month. In 2011, Shambhunath lost his job at the Sonali Bank when he was caught inserting counterfeit notes inside a bank locker. Since then, he had been working with counterfeiters until detectives arrested him with Tk30 lakh from Kamrangirchar on August 4.
and he had been living there for the last two months. Nazmul, however, claims that an Awami League leader rented it out to him at half the regular rent. Sources said Nazmul also rents a luxury flat in the capital’s Old DOHS. Md Joynal Abedin, caretaker of that building, said Nazmul had been living in a 1,400 square-foot flat for the last one year. “The rent of the flat should be around Tk35,000-40,000 exclusive of the service charges and other expenses,” he said. According to Nazmul: “The flat is owned by Dewanganj upazila Chairman Ishtiak Didar, who is a cousin of mine. I do not have to pay to live there.”
Bbarta.com
Nazmul is also the publisher of an online news portal named bbarta24.com. Wishing not to be named, a senior reporter of the portal said it was launched in August 2012. Nazmul became a partner in the beginning of 2013 and later the publisher. Nazmul said the editor of bbarta. com had once requested him to be the publisher as they thought they could get more advertisements by using his connections. “Then I decided to get involved as I had a plan to be in the media industry.” He also said: “I helped them get some advertisements but I did not make any investment.” However, a number of Chhatra League central leaders said Nazmul invested around Tk30-40 lakh to become the publisher.
Wheeler dealerships
Nazmul also obtained a dealership of Symphony mobile phone after he had PAGE 2 COLUMN 4
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Four of a family murdered in Keraniganj n Ashif Islam Shaon A couple and their two children were found dead in a rented flat in Kolakandi area of south Keraniganj, on the outskirts of the capital, yesterday morning. Police suspected that the victims were strangled a day or two ago as the bodies had already begun to decompose. As the victims were new in the area and neighbours did not know them, police could not ascertain their identities as of yesterday evening. But the law enforcers and neighbours think the victims belong to the same family. Police also suspected that the flat might have been used as a hideout of criminals. The man who headed the family
was around 35 years old and the wife around 28; the son was around eight years old and the daughter was not over two, police said. On information from the caretaker of the house and the neighbours, a team of south Keraniganj police station recovered the bodies from the first floor of the six-storey building around 11:15am. Owner of the building Mohammad Samsuddin Mia lives in Saudi Arabia. South Keraniganj police station’s OC Jalal Uddin Mir told the Dhaka Tribune that the killers had tied the victims’ legs and hands with bedsheets and mouth with scarf before killing. “The man’s body was under a bed and others on the floor near the bed. The bodies on the floor were under a mattress,” he said.
Quoting Sohel, the caretaker of the house, the OC said a local CNG auto-rickshaw driver named Akkas had brought a youth to Sohel two months back. The youth introduced himself as Rafique Hossain and rented the flat for Tk4,500 and an advance security deposit of Tk10,000, saying his maternal uncle – a vegetables vendor – and his family would live there. Rafique is a CNG auto-rickshaw driver. “After a few days the family and three others – Rafique, a man and a woman – started living in the flat. But later the three were rarely seen during daytime. They would go out in the morning and come back late at night,” the caretaker told police. The children would never come outside to play. Sohel said he went to the flat to col-
lect the rent on Tuesday but he found the main door closed from the outside. Neighbours in the opposite flat also did not see them or hear any sound from the flat. “As stink came out, we along with other tenants broke into the flat this morning and found the bodies,” he claimed. Police picked up Sohel and the CNG driver Akkas for interrogation. Echoing Sohel, the victims’ next door neighbour Hasina Begum said they knew that the new family had an eight-year-old child but they did not admit him to any local school. “Perhaps they wanted to keep a low profile,” she said. After the incident high officials of PAGE 2 COLUMN 1