A Dhaka court has sentenced Bazlur Rashid, the suspended deputy inspector general of prisons, to five years in jail for accumulating Tk 31.43 million in illegal wealth in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission, bdnews24.com reports.
In addition to the prison sentence, Judge Iqbal Hossain of the Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-5 also ordered the seizure of the Tk 31.43 million in the verdict delivered on Sunday.
The judge also ordered Bazlur to pay a fine of Tk 500,000, saying failure to pay the sum will extend the sentence by six months.
The suspended DIG received the sentence under section 27(1) of the 2004 Anti-Corruption Commission law, said ACC lawyer Mosharraf Hossain Kajol.
The court set Sunday for the verdict after the state and defence completed their arguments on Sept 22.
In October 2019, the ACC called Bazlur for questioning and arrested him afterwards. ACC Deputy Director Md Salahuddin then filed a case against him the same day.
The charges in the case were submitted to the court on Aug 26, 2020. Bazlur was indicted on Oct 22 of that year.
Bazlur bought a 2,961-square-foot apartment in the under-construction Rupayan Housing Estate and paid Tk 30.8 million for it. No valid source of income was shown for the funds.
No information about the purchase of the apartment was present in his income tax documents either.
Bazlur, a member of the 1993 batch of the prison cadre, was on duty at the Department of Prison in Dhaka.