Bangladesh
PK Halder PK Haldar remanded in India for 10 days
Dhaka, May 17: A Kolkata court has remanded Prashanta Kumar Haldar (PK Haldar), the mastermind of the much talked about NRB Global Bank scam, for another 10 days. A 14-day remand was sought for PK Haldar after he was taken to a Kolkata court on Tuesday. The court sent him to a 10-day remand.
Last Saturday (May 14), a search operation was launched in West Bengal province for the second day in search of PK Haldar's property. PK Haldar was arrested from the North 24 Parganas district of the province around noon and remanded in court. The court later granted him a three-day remand.
Lawyers for the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the investigating agency of India's Union Finance Ministry, briefed the court on the progress of PK Haldar's case on Tuesday. At the time, they told the court that PK Haldar, a Bangladeshi national living and doing business illegally in India, was interrogated and found huge assets. ED has found assets worth Tk 150 crore in India.
After regular health check-up at the ED office in the morning, five people including PK Haldar were produced in court and remand was sought. At the end of the medical examination, he was taken to court through special security measures. After the hearing, the court granted the remand application. However, his wife has been remanded in judicial custody for 10 days. There he was allowed to be interrogated.
Arijit Chakraborty, the court's public prosecutor, told reporters that money laundering cases had been filed against them. He has been remanded for questioning in that case. ED officials said that PK Haldar has not yet given any information on whether any politician of the province is involved in money laundering from Bangladesh to India illegally.
According to the ED, with the help of private lawyer Sukumar Mridha, PK Haldar has amassed huge wealth in several states of India, including West Bengal. ED has found that he has amassed huge wealth including multiple elite houses in India through smuggling money from Bangladesh.
The country's central investigative agency says it has already recovered several documents from PK Haldar. Initially, these documents contain information about the ownership of about 20 to 25 of his houses in India.
