Reza Mahmud :
BNP decried the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) move to open probe against eight senior party leaders on their alleged involvement in suspicious bank transactions involving Tk 125 crore. Party leaders and workers resented the move all over the country saying it is politically motivated.
.”The allegations against the BNP leaders are false, fabricated and motivated. The government is using ACC to obstruct our movement to keep the party out of the upcoming national election. It is trying to hold another one-sided polls in 2019 like the last one,” senior BNP leaders said at a press conference yesterday clearing their position.
Senior Joint-Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi held the press conference at the party’s Nayapaltan central office. They said the ACC allegation of suspicious bank transactions for ‘funding violence and money laundering’ is false and fabricated to serve the government political ends.
The ACC chairman Iqbal Mahmood however told the New Nation yesterday that there is no politics in it. He claimed ACC’s neutrality over the move. The anti-graft body on Monday appointed Deputy Director Shamsul Alam as the agency’s enquiry officer into the matter.
The ACC initially blamed the BNP senior leaders opening the graft probe. They are Standing Committee Members Dr. Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, Mirza Abbas, Nazrul Islam Khan and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury; Vice-Chairmen Abdul Awal Mintoo and M. Morshed Khan.
The list also include Joint Secretary General Habib-un-Nabi Khan Sohel, Executive Committee Member Tabith Awal,. Morshed Khan’s son Foysal Morshed and Dhaka Bank Managing Director Syed Mahbubur Rahman.
After BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s conviction in February this year in a graft case, this is the first such move by ACC to implicate more senior party leaders to in graft cases in the election year.
Among BNP leaders attended the press conference were Standing Committee Members Dr. Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Nazrul Islam Khan, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, and Vice-Chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo.
They claimed that the ACC’s allegation against them is imaginary and fabricated. The government is intentionally trying to destroy their image before the national election.
Dr. Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain said, “I have no account in Dutch-Bangla Bank. Any of my family member also has no account in that bank. But the ACC brought allegation that I have an account there and transacted Tk 21 crore. I challenged and ask the ACC to show my account number and my money there.”
He said, “When our party chief is in jail the government is trying to harm our party senior leaders’ image. The allegations were brought against us to destroy image of BNP leaders. These are false and fabricated. We condemned it,” he said Nazrul Islam Khan said, “A news portal named after ‘Bangla insider’ published the false reports against us. Who run the news portal? Who informed them before the government’s special agencies could know it? The news portal have to apologize or we will take legal action,” he said.
He said, “The allegation stated that I transacted Tk 7 crore, it is a total fun.”
Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said, “The enquiry is nothing but a part of the government’s blueprint of establishing ‘one-party rule’ in the country.”
Awami League has opened 25 news portals only to use as campaigning tools against the BNP. They are destroying the state organs only to cling to power, he added.
BNP Vice-Chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo said, “We do business and there might be transactions but the way the allegations have been brought are fabricated, not true. The allegation is motivated.”
When asked whether the allegation against the BNP leaders are politically motivated as the party leaders claim, ACC Chairman Iqbal Mahmood said, there is no political agenda on it.
“We are not involved in politics. There is nothing politics among the ACC’s move against the BNP’s eight leaders,” he said.
When asked why the ACC choose this time to conduct inquiry against senior BNP leaders as the year is called ‘election year’? Iqbal Mahmood said, “We never think what election year is, but whenever we get allegation we initiate step.”
“We need not sit idle after hearings any ones speech blaming ACC. Nothing can stop us from our actions,” he said. When contacted the inquiry officer and ACC Deputy Director, Shamsul Alam, said, there is nothing to say. I just get the responsibility to start the inquiry.
When contacted, Syed Iqbal Hossain, the Director of ACC said, “We open probe against the eight BNP leaders on the basis of allegation. Without any allegation the ACC never take any action intentionally,” he said.
