Staff Reporter :
The Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday arrested four persons, including two senior officials of Farmers Bank, on charge of misappropriation of bank-money and misuse of power in loan disbursement.
The detainees are bank’s former audit committee’s Chairman Mahabubul Haque Chisty (Babul Chisty), his son Rashedul Haque Chisty, the bank’s Senior-Vice President Ziauddin Ahmed and First Vice-President Muhammad Masudur Rahman Khan.
A team of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) led by its Deputy Director Md Shamsul Alam detained them from in front of the National Board of Revenue building in the city’s Segunbagicha at about 2:30pm.
Confirming the news, ACC Assistant Director (Public Relations) Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya told The New Nation that they were arrested over allegation of embezzlement of Tk 160 crore from the bank and misuse of power in loan disbusement violating banking norms.
“A case has been filed with the Gulshan police station in the morning in this connection,” he said.
Earlier, ACC imposed a travel ban on 17 people including several incumbent and former top officials of the Farmers Bank Limited.
The top Farmers Bank officials facing the ban are the Bank’s former Audit Committee chairman Mahabubul Haque Chisty, his wife Ruzi Chisty, son Rashedul Haque Chisty, Rashed’s wife Farhana Ahmed, daughter Rimi Chisty, Mazedul Haque Chisty, the bank’s former Managing Director and CEO AKM Shameem, Deputy Managing Director Abdul Motaleb Patwari, Senior Executive Vice-President Gazi Salauddin, Executive VP Mohammad Jahangir Alam Majumdar and SVP Zia Uddin Ahmed.
The other officials are Lutful Haque and Md Monirul Haque, Md Tafazzal Hossain, Mohammad Shamsul Hassan Bhuiyan, Mahbub Ahmed and Md Zakir Hossain.
Established in June 2013 following approval on political consideration, Farmers Bank made headlines in 2017 after investigations found massive irregularities in the bank’s loan disbursement along with a huge amount of default loans.
The bank has become a particularly risky organization in the banking sector as the amount of its default loans stood at Tk723 at the end of December last year, which is 14 percent of its total disbursed loan, according to Bangladesh Bank (BB).
BB also found over Tk 1000 crore loan irregularities at various branches of the bank.
The bank has also continuously failed to return the deposits of depositors over the last few months due to lack of funds.
Following the scandals, the bank’s Chairman MK Alamgir, a former Home Minister and Audit Committee Chief Mahabubul Haque Chisty resigned.
The central bank in December last year also removed the bank’s Managing Director AKM Shameem.
