The Indian central intelligence agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested former NRB Bank Managing Director Proshanta Kumar Halder (PK Halder), who is wanted in Bangladesh in connection with scams worth billions of taka. He was arrested from Ashoknagar of India’s West Bengal while law enforcers were conducting raids at the different premises connected with his associates in the state on Saturday morning. Media reports said PK Halder and his associates are accused of having embezzled billions of taka and siphoning them off to India, Canada and other countries. The ED became active after obtaining specific information and messages from the Bangladesh government.
The Indian intelligence agency further said the fugitive Bangladeshi businessman PK Halder and his associates have also managed to float companies in India on the basis of fraudulently obtained identities and have purchased immovable properties in various places, including luxury houses in posh areas of Kolkata. That the luxury houses and properties have been unearthed in West Bengal state by the intelligence agency. It is no secret now that from Bangladesh’s billions of taka has been laundered to different foreign destinations for years. The existence of ‘Begum Para’ in Canada has become a byword of this crime. Reportedly, PK Halder managed to transfer his ill-gotten wealth in India by fraudulently obtaining citizenship papers there. However, in nabbing corrupt people as well as stopping money laundering, Anti Corruption Commission’s (ACC’s) role in Bangladesh has always been questionable.
But is PK Halder alone active in money laundering? Not certainly. Due to absence of any government check, the white-collar criminals such as business tycoons, corrupt politicians, public officials and their criminal enterprises have siphoned off money that has become a great threat to Bangladesh’s rising economy. In this illegal transfer of money, politics of the ruling party is allegedly involved. Recently, Communications and Bridges Minister and Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader himself at a party council in Faridpur admitted that by doing AL politics people have laundered crores of taka. For continuing in power, the government rather has remained complicit in these crimes.
Bangladesh’s economy has now come to the brink of disaster because of ignoring financial crimes committed by people who are involved in government or who walk the corridors of power. We often hear, from the government, hue and cry about zero tolerance of corruption, money laundering and other financial scams in the face of public shame as revealing reports appear from time to time.
Close collaboration of the people in government embolden such robbery of public money which will be exposed when the cases be heard in an open court. Extent of bank robbery was such a surprise that the economy has not collapsed. Thanks to inhumanly hard working migrant labourers. Their huge remittances have saved us from immediate calamity. The government of a consolidated group happily serves the interest of the group of the few without worrying the fate of the general public.
But in reality, we hardly see any sustained efforts or initiatives to ensure good economic governance and rule of law for stopping people like PK Halder.
