BNP candidate Ishraque indicted in graft case

A Dhaka special judge court indicted the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s mayoral candidate for Dhaka south city elections, Ishraque Hossain, in a corruption case on Wednesday.

BNP termed Ishraque’s indictment as the government’s trick to hold a one-sided election.

Dhaka special judge-4 Sheikh Nazmul Alam indicted Ishraque over nine years after Anti-Corruption Commission lodged a case with the Ramna police station on August 29, 2010 allegedly for possessing money without known source of income.

The court also set February 9 for beginning of the trial through recording statements of prosecution witnesses, ACC general recording officer Abdus Salam told New Age.

Ishraque, from the dock, pleaded not guilty and preferred to be tried.

Prior to the indictment, the court rejected Ishraque’s plea for discharging him from the charge.

ACC assistant director Shamsul Alam filed the cases with the Ramna police station against Ishraque for not submitting wealth statements.

He also complained that Ishraque massed wealth worth about Tk 3 crore without having known sources, officials in the court said.

On September 7, 2016, notice was served to Ishraque asking him and his dependents to submit his and his dependants’ wealth statement, they said, adding that a constable of the commission went to his house to serve the notice on the day.

As Ishraq was not present at home, the notice was served by hanging it on the left wall of the gate of his house in presence of four witnesses.

On December 6, 2018, ACC deputy director Jahangir Alam pressed charges against him at the metropolitan magistrate court and metropolitan magistrate Satyabrata Shikder received the charge sheet.  

On May 5, 2019, senior special judge KM Imrul Kayes took the charge in cognisance and issued a warrant for the arrest of Ishraque and transferred the case to the court of Dhaka special judge-4 for trial.

On December 9, 2019, Ishraque surrender before the court and secured bail.

‘As they want to hold the one-sided election, they have been using new styles. They are using electronic voting machines and filing cases to thwart the opposition. That is why, the government used a case lodged over nine years ago to indict Ishraque at this time,’ BNP’s senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said.

He alleged that the government wanted to show the election participatory but actually making it a ‘cosmetic election’.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net