4 sentenced to jail in Ctg for selling mortgaged shrimps

A Chittagong court yesterday sentenced four persons including two former officials of Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) to 10 years' imprisonment each for misappropriating mortgaged property of the bank.

Chittagong Divisional Special Judge Ruhul Amin pronounced the verdict, said Public Prosecutor (PP) Mejbah Uddin Chowdhury, adding that the court fined them Tk 60 lakh each, in default of which the convicts would have to stay behind bars one more year.

The convicts -- BKB Cha Board Branch's former manager Shahed Hasan, its second officer Mir Kashem, M/S Fish Home Ltd's accounts officer Biplab Chowdhury and its warehouse official Sahedul Haque -- are on the run, the PP added. Through collusion and by creating fake documents, the four sold around 49,000kgs of exportable shrimps, worth Tk 2.40 crore, of M/S Fish Home Ltd after bringing the shrimps out of the warehouse despite those being mortgaged to the bank against a loan the company had taken.