Freeze eight accounts of Khokon, family
A Dhaka court has ordered a freeze on eight bank accounts of former Dhaka South City Corporation mayor Sayeed Khokon and his three family members as part of an investigation into an allegation of amassing illegal wealth.
Three of the accounts belong to Khokon's business firms, two each to his wife Farhana Alam and sister Shahana Hanif, and one to his mother Fatema Hanif, an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) official told The Daily Star.
Judge KM Emrul Kayesh of Senior Special Judge's Court of Dhaka passed the order on June 27 after Jalal Uddin Ahammad, deputy director of ACC and also the head of an enquiry team probing the allegation, had submitted an application to it seeking permission to freeze their bank accounts, court sources said.
In the application, the enquiry officer said large sums of money were transacted using those bank accounts.
The accounts need to be blocked to ensure a fair investigation into the allegations. This needs to be done on an urgent basis to make sure that no money is withdrawn, transferred or handed over from those accounts, he also said.
During the enquiry, it was learnt that the accused were trying to transfer money from those accounts, the enquiry officer added.
On December 29 last year, Khokon and six others were sued over embezzling Tk 34.89 crore.
Delwar Hossain, president of Traders-Owners Association of Fulbaria City Supermarket-2 in the capital's Gulistan, filed the case with Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka.
The case is now under investigation.
In the case statement, the complainant mentioned that the accused took around Tk 34.89 crore from the complainant and 26 other traders between June 21, 2015, and September 29, 2019 in the name of "allocating shops at the market's blocks- A, B, C". But the shops were being demolished for violating the original design of the market building.
On December 8 last year, the DSCC knocked down several hundred illegal shops at Fulbaria Supermarket-2, which were built violating the main design of the building.
Comments