‘Will make list of wealth accumulated by BNP leaders’

Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader yesterday echoed the home minister’s remark, made on Saturday, over Dhaka South Jubo League President Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat and asked people to wait and find out whether Samrat was arrested.

“The home minister is the authority to comment on the matter. Trust his comment,” Quader said when journalists asked him the question. 

“Please wait and see. You will know soon,” Quader, also road transport and bridges minister, said this while visiting an underpass being built near Shaheed Ramiz Uddin School and College on Airport Road.

Asked about BNP’s demand to make a complete list of properties of Awami League leaders, Quader said the same would be done for BNP leaders. “Whitepaper would be published on how much wealth they accumulated when they were in power,” he added.

Speculations are running high over the whereabouts of Samrat, the alleged kingpin of “casino business” in the capital.

Sources in the law enforcement agencies said he is under the watch of law enforcers who are just waiting for green signal from high-ups to arrest him, while a newspaper reported that the Jubo League leader had been arrested.

Since the arrest of Dhaka South Jubo League Organising Secretary Khaled Mahmud Bhuiyan (later expelled) for his  alleged links with running a gambling den on September 18, Samrat had reportedly dug himself in at his  office in Kakrail with several hundred of his followers.

During the anti-gambling drive at casinos and bars, and homes of suspects, Rab arrested top construction businessman GK Shamim, Krishak League executive committee member and Kalabagan Krira Chakra president Shafiqul Alam Firoz and Mohammedan Sporting Club director in-charge M Lokman Hossain Bhuiyan.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Saturday asked the media to wait, evading giving any specific information on Samrat. “You will see…very soon,” the minister said while responding to a query of journalists on whether Samrat was arrested.

Meanwhile, the home minister yesterday said the ongoing drive is not only against casinos but also against all corrupt businessmen and lawbreakers.

“We have to establish good governance under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Towards that goal, the wrongdoers -- irrespective of political and social background -- would be brought to book,” he said, reported UNB.

The minister came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after attending a programme at Ansar VDP Academy in Shafipur.

Referring to the ongoing drive, the minister said legal action is being taken against those involved in illegal business.