OC Pradeep, Wife: Court orders attachment of properties

A Chattogram court yesterday passed an order to freeze all movable and immovable property of Chumki Karan, wife of former officer-in-charge of Teknaf Police Station Pradeep Kumar Das, in connection with a graft case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

Meanwhile, the court rejected the bail prayer of Pradeep, who is accused in Major (retd) Sinha Md Rashed Khan murder, in the graft case for amassing illegal wealth.

The court of Metropolitan Session Judge Sheikh Ashfaqur Rahman passed the confiscation order after the investigation officer (IO) of the case made an appeal to seize the property found during investigation.

Following appeal of the case's IO Riaz Uddin, also ACC's assistant director, the court ordered to freeze movable and immovable property of Chumki, as mentioned in the FIR, until further notice, said ACC lawyer Advocate Kazi Sanawar Hossain Lavlu.

Apart from that, the court also rejected Pradeep's bail prayer placed before court by his lawyer, said ACC public prosecutor Mahmudul Haque.

The court also ordered jail authorities to take necessary steps as per the jail code after his lawyer pleaded for medical treatment and family visitations, he said.

IO Riaz told the Daily Star, "We appealed before court to seize the property after we came to learn that they were trying to hand over their money and property to others."

Lavlu said the property ordered to be confiscated were: a six-storey building owned by Chumki in city's Patharghata, a semi-pacca house, a piece of land in city's Muradpur, a flat in Cox's Bazar, a microbus, a private car and Tk 17.73 lakh in a Basic bank account.

According to the case statement, Chumki showed that her father had given her the six-storey building on August 1, 2013. She has two brothers who did not get any such mentionable property from her father, said the ACC.

Chumki, a housewife, submitted income tax return for the first time in 2013-14 fiscal year. Since then, she has been mentioning that business was her profession.

In her 2013-14 and 2014-15 income tax return, she declared her capital in a commission business as Tk11.2 lakh and income as Tk3.8 lakh.

But no existence of the commission business was found and she could not provide any license or bank statement in this regard.

Chumki also declared earning Tk 1.5 crore from a fish business from 2002 to 2013 and leasing five ponds in Boalkhali in 2002 at Tk 16.5 lakh for ten years.

The couple failed to show any document about the source of Tk 16.5 lakh invested in the fish business.

"It proves that Chumki, in a bid to conceal Pradeep's illegal money, showed a fake fish business. Her income of Tk 1.5 crore from the fish business is not acceptable," the FIR reads.

Analysing documents, the commission also found that Chumki had amassed Tk 4.22 crore immoveable property and spent Tk 21.7 lakh as family expenditure.