The probe committee was formed following a Bangladesh Bank (BB) report submitted Tuesday to the ministry mentioning a few cases of dubious transactions in Islamic Bank Bangladesh Ltd that may have links to the militants.

Meanwhile, Islami Bank yesterday suspended five officials including the managers of its three branches at Sylhet, Savar and Gazipur. The bank also issued show-cause notices to 18 other staff for their suspected involvement in dubious transactions.

Sources said a special superintendent of police at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) heads the home ministry probe committee while a BB representative and a Rapid Action Battalion official are the members.

"We'll decide our action after getting report of the committee," State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar told The Daily Star yesterday.

The government is determined to take drastic action to root out militancy from the country, he said, referring to the process of formulating an anti-terrorist act.

"We're ready to take action as soon as we get any information regarding the militants' financial sources and network," said the minister.

He also said: "We made the CID special superintendent as head of the committee as he has received training in dealing with money laundering cases."

Following the arrest of militant kingpin Abdur Rahman and seizure of some banking documents from his busted Sylhet hideout on March 2, five BB teams probed three branches of Islami Bank, and one each of Rupali and Janata Bank.

The seized documents are related to Rupali Bank's Pallabi Branch in Dhaka, Janata Bank's Brahmanbaria Branch and Islami Bank's Lal Dighirparh Branch in Sylhet.

The probe teams found some lapses in banking norms and suspicious transactions with three Islami Bank branches in Sylhet, Gazipur and Savar, said sources.

The three branches of Islami Bank violated some of the regulations specified in the Anti-Money Laundering Act, specially the section called 'Know Your Customer (KYC)'.

Despite the fact that there were some "dubious" transactions in its Sylhet branch, the Islami Bank did not report it to the central bank as demanded by law, the sources added.

One Sabbir Ahmed opened the account with the Lal Dighirparh Branch, but it was operated by Saidur Rahman, former Habiganj district ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami. The account with Rupali Bank's Pallabi Branch is in the name of Saidur.

The BB on Tuesday served a show-cause notice to the chief executive of Islami Bank on the alleged irregularities in the dubious accounts and asked him to reply within 10 days.

Sources said the probe report sent to the home ministry does not have any recommendation -- it only shows the findings. The account holders, account numbers and others who had done transactions with those accounts have been mentioned in the report.