Bank official admits Tk 25m siphoned off from accounts

Our Correspondent

CHITTAGONG, Mar 31: An official of the Khatunganj branch of Bangladesh Commerce Bank has surrendered to the Kotwali police station in the port city following alleged misappropriation of Tk 50 million (5 crore) of the branch.

But he confessed that he had removed Tk 25 million (2.5 crore) from accounts of customers and paid back his loan he had taken from a businessman.

A deputy director of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said this to the FE on Tuesday, when asked about their investigation into the bank money misappropriation. He said they were yet to ascertain how many accounts the money had been removed from.

The BB constituted a three-member committee with Syed Ahmed, joint director of the BB, as the team leader to investigate the matter. Other members are deputy directors Showib Chowdhury and Anik Talukdar.

Another team from the Commerce Bank's Dhaka head office arrived in the port city to investigate the incident following allegations from the bank's branch manager that a big amount of money had been removed and that the second officer of the branch, Md Moinuddin, had remained absent from the office without any notice for two days.

Kotwali OC Jashim Uddin said Moinuddin had surrendered to the police at around 10.15 am on Monday.

"He has also confessed to the police that he had removed the money from Khatunganj Branch. He has been set to jail," the OC added.

Hundreds of curious onlookers gathered around the bank branch in the Khatunganj-Chaktai area on the day and members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the police were patrolling.

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