The High Court on Wednesday granted one-year bail to five day-labourers of Phulbari Upazila in Kurigram district over three months after their arrest on a charge of embezzling government money even though they denied any knowledge of the funds.
The five day-labourers are—Phulmoni Rani, a widow, Ranjit Kumar, Prabhash Chandra, Kamal Chandra Roy and Nikhil Chandra Barman, reports UNB.
The HC bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Mohammad Ali passed the order during a virtual hearing.
Advocate Mohammad Shishir Monir stood for the petitioners for free, while Deputy Attorney General Amit Dasgupta represented the state.
Advocate Shishir drew the attention of the court after attaching a newspaper report in this regard.
According to the report, one Swapan approached the five labourers of Naudabas village in Phulbari Upazila offering to help them in getting the government’s Covid-19 incentive money. He asked them to open bank accounts with Sonali Bank to get assistance.
Duped by Swapan, the five poor workers opened bank accounts at Nageshwari branch Sonali Bank.
Later, Swapan took them to Dhaka on the pretext of taking some signatures of them on some documents, having signed the documents without knowing the contents.
After some days, Tk 4.8 million was deposited to the account of Ranjit, Tk 6.6 million to Prabhas, Tk 4.1 million to the account of Subol, Tk 4.2 million to the account of Kamal and Tk 4.9 million to the account of Phulmoni.
But the day-labourers had no information about the deposited money.
On July 1, a case was filed against nine people including the five day-labourers for embezzling Tk 24.6 million through submission of fake advice of Sreepur Upazila Accountant's office in Gazipur district.
The manager of the Sreepur headquarters branch of Sonali Bank lodged the complaint at Sreepur Police Station for embezzling the money.
The other accused of the case are—Bazlur Rashid, accountant officer of Sreepur Upazila office, office auditor, Arifur Rahman, Tanvir and Shahena Akter.
On July 2, police arrested the five day-labourers from their respective homes.
A lower court earlier denied bail to the five labourers.
