Court accepts land grabbing charges against Moudud, brother

Moudud Ahmed

A Dhaka court today accepted the charges against BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed and his brother Monjur Ahmed in a case filed allegedly for grabbing an abandoned public land worth over Tk 300 crore in Gulshan area of Dhaka.

After scrutinising the case dockets and other relevant documents, Judge Md Jahurul Haque of the Senior Special Judges Court took the charges into cognisance in presence of Moudud.

The court also issued an arrest warrant against Monjur as he was shown fugitive in the case.

It fixed October 21 for starting hearing on charge framing in the case.

After an investigation that started during the period of caretaker government in 2008, Harun-ur-Rashid, deputy director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), lodged the case with Gulshan Police Station on December 17 last year.

In his complaint, Harun-ur-Rashid stated that Moudud and his brother grabbed the land — stretching over around one bigha and 13 katha — at Gulshan between 1978 and 2006.

According to the case statement, the land was enlisted as the government’s abandoned land in 1972 after Pakistani couple Mohammad Ehsan and Inge Maria Flatz left the country before 1972.

Ehsan received the possession of the land in 1961 from now-defunct DIT [now Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha], the case statement said, adding the land was transferred to Flatz in 1965.

Moudud falsely showed that Flatz issued a power of attorney in favour of him on August 2, 1973.

On May 26, Harun-ur-Rashid submitted the charge sheet against the duo to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka showing 28 people as procession witnesses.