Publish gazette asking PK Halder, others to appear before court

A Dhaka court on Wednesday directed the authorities concerned to publish a gazette notification asking Prashanta Kumar Halder and nine others to appear before it in a case filed over amassing a huge amount of money.
The former managing director of NRB Global Bank, who is better known as PK Halder, allegedly embezzled about Tk 4.26 billion illegally and conducted abnormal transactions of Tk 60.80 billion through different bank accounts.
Judge KM Emrul Kayesh of Metropolitan Senior Special Judge's Court of Dhaka passed the order after getting reports from different police stations on execution of arrest warrants issued against PK Halder and the others.
Lawyer Mir Ahmed Ali Salam, who appeared in the hearing on behalf of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), said, "Four among 14 accused of the case are under jail custody and 10 others, including PK Halder, remain fugitives. Under this circumstance, the court ordered a gazette notification against them."
PK Halder and four others were arrested in India on May 14 last, but the matter will not be taken into consideration until he is brought back to Bangladesh, said the ACC lawyer.
The nine others who face arrest warrants are: PK Halder's mother Lilabati Halder, his brother Pritish Kumar Halder, Purnima Rani Halder, Amitav Adhikari, Rajib Som, Subrata Das, Ananga Mohon Roy, Uttam Kumar Mistri and Swapon Kumar Mistri.
On March 27 last, the same court accepted the charges against PK Halder and 13 others in the case. The judge also issued an arrest warrant against PK Halder and the nine others as they were shown "fugitives" in the charge sheet.
Four accused of the case -- Abantika Baral, Shangka Bepari, Sukumar Mridha and Anindita Mridha -- are now in jail. They were produced before the court on Wednesday.
PK Halder and his cohorts also laundered 11.71 million Canadian dollars to Canada, according to the charge sheet.
Meanwhile, the judge on Wednesday rejected a bail petition of PK Halder's close aide Anindita Mridha after her lawyer moved it on grounds that she had been in jail since January 2021.

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