Complicity in Embezzling Tk 3.8 Crore

4 Sylhet Janata Bank staff suspended, ex-manager denied retirement benefit

16 July 2009, 17:00 PM

Staff Correspondent, Sylhet

Janata Bank authorities have suspended three officers and a cashier and stopped retirement benefits of a former manager of a branch for their complicity with embezzling about Tk 3 crore 80 lakh by two petroleum businessmen. The suspended officials are Md Harun Shah, manager of Kumargaon branch on the outskirts of Sylhet city, Abul Quashem, second officer, Abdul Hannan, officer, and Anup Kumar Dey, cashier of the same branch while the concerned former manager of the same branch is Md Rouf (now retired), sources said. A letter to this effect signed on July 8 reached the branch office on Wednesday. “Action has been taken against the officials concerned. We have also realised Tk 1,20,20,000 from the two traders. A four-member committee is trying to realise the rest of the money as soon as possible,” Khoirat Hosain Sarker, deputy general manager (Sylhet region) of the bank, said yesterday. Parvez Rashid, one of the owners of M/S Rahim and Rahim, a filling station at Shibganj in the city, and Zobayer Ahmed Chowdhury, owner of another filling station Surma Petroleum on Sunamganj Road, misappropriated a total of Tk 3,79,60,000 crore in the form of pay orders on occasions from Kumargaon branch of Janata Bank during the last two years, bank sources said. Acting on a tip, a team from the bank's head office went to Sylhet a few weeks ago and detected misappropriation of the said amount through preparing fake pay orders. The two businessmen managed the pay orders from the branch with the connivance of the branch manager, second officer, officer and the cashier. Based on the preliminary report of the enquiry team, the authority suspended three officers and the cashier and took measures to stop paying retirement benefits of former branch manger Abdur Rouf, who had been on LPR since June 2008. To realise the misappropriated amount, the bank's head office formed a four-member committee headed by Deputy General Manager Khoibar Hossain Sarker. The other members of the committee are assistant general managers Riazul Islam, Subodh Chandra Talukder and Abdul Mannan. The committee has already recovered Tk 62 lakh 20 thousand from Zobayer Ahmed Chowdhury and Tk 58 lakh from Parvez Rashid, committee members said. “If we fail to realise the rest of the misappropriated bank money, we will have no other option but to file cases. We are waiting for instruction from the head office,” said a bank official.