The police arrested former Dhaka North City Corporation mayor Atiqul Islam at a location in the capital鈥檚 Mohakhali DOHS area on Wednesday.
The Anti-Corruption Commission on the day also arrested former deputy postmaster general, Mostaq Ahmed, in connection with a case of embezzling Tk 15 crore through corruption in government procurement.
Confirming the arrest of Atiqul, Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner (media) Talebur Rahman said that Atiqul was arrested by the members of Mohammadpur police station at about 7:00pm.
鈥楢tiqul is accused in several cases lodged with the Mohammadpur police station. Three of them were lodged for committing murders,鈥� Talebur added.
Atiqul became the Dhaka north city mayor for the first time in a by-election on February 28, 2019 and took oath as a mayor on March 7.
Later, he was elected as DNCC mayor again in the election on February 1, 2020.
Atiqul also served as the president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association from March 2013 to September 2015.
On the other hand, a team of ACC led by deputy assistant director Nazir Akand arrested Mostaq Ahmed on Wednesday and detained Directorate of Posts鈥� former director general Sudhangshu Shekhor Bhadra at separate places in Dhaka in a graft case, said ACC deputy director (public relations) Md Akhtarul Islam.
After detaining the former DG, Sudhangshu鈥檚 lawyer Mintu Kumar Mondal informed the ACC that his client was granted an eight-week anticipatory bail by the High Court on September 2 in the graft case.
Later, ACC released Sudhangshu from their custody on Wednesday.
Besides, Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge, Mohammad As-sams Joglul Hossain, sent Mostaq Ahmed to jail after the ACC had produced him before the court seeking an order to send him to prison in the case.
On August 20, ACC filed a case with its integrated district office of Dhaka-1 against Sudhangshu Shekhar Bhadra, and deputy postmaster general, Mostaq Ahmed, for their alleged involvement in money embezzlement.
According to the case statement, Sudhangshu and Mostaq served as project director and deputy project director respectively for the 鈥楶ost e-Centre for Rural Community鈥� project.
The two officials were accused of embezzling and wasting over Tk 15 crore during the procurement of 500 HPE Servers and UPS units. Despite the significant expenditure, the equipment was never utilised, leading to a loss of public funds.