Former senior secretary, his business partner placed on remand

A Dhaka court today placed two people, including former senior secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief Shah Kamal, on a five-day remand in a case filed against them under the Foreign Currency Control Act.

The other accused is his business partner Nusrat Hossain.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mahbub Ahmed passed the order after Mohammad Rezaul, a sub-inspector of Mohammadpur Police Station and the case's investigation officer (IO), produced them before his court with a 10-day remand prayer.

In the remand prayer, the IO said both of the accused failed to show any valid documents about the ownership of foreign currency and gold ornaments. Moreover, they gave contradictory statements. So they need to be remanded to know more details and to find out if others are involved in the crime.

The defence submitted an application seeking bail along with the cancellation of the remand prayer on the grounds that their clients were implicated in the case as part of a conspiracy to harass them.

Yesterday, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested Shah Kamal and Nusrat Hossain from the city's Mohakhali area.

On August 16, DMP conducted a raid and recovered cash worth around Tk 3.11 crore, including local and foreign currencies, from a house in Babar Road in the capital's Mohammadpur area.

The owner of the house, Kamal, served as secretary from 2015 to 2019 and as a senior secretary from 2019 to 2020.

Of the Tk 3.11 crore recovered, Tk 3.01 crore was in cash, Tk 74,400 was in prize bonds and Tk 10.03 lakh was in various foreign currencies. The foreign currencies include $3,000; 1,320 Malaysian Ringgit; 2,969 Saudi Riyal; 4,122 Singapore dollars and 1,915 Australian dollars; 35,000 Korean, won and 199 Chinese Yuan.