BartaBangla Desk :: Bangladesh Bank reported to the High Court that it found only Tk 82.70 lakh in 13 accounts with different private banks operated by Sohel Rana, the owner collapsed Rana Plaza at Savar, said officials.
As of May 9, the Central Bank, found only Tk 3,163 in the accounts with the Dutch Bangla Bank in the name of Rana Plaza Proprietors, according to the report BB submitted in the High Court on Monday in compliance with its order.
The BB report said that Sohel Rana operated four accounts with EXIM Bank, three with BRAC Bank, five with National Bank, one each with Eastern Bank, Mutual Trust Bank and Dutch Bangla Bank.
The BB said that it found Tk 82, 70, 795 in 13 out of the 15 accounts as the bank statements stated on May 13 and 14.
The report said that the
central bank found Tk 15, 33, 51,779 in 13 accounts operated by clothing factories Phantom Apparels Ltd and Phantom Tac Ltd and by Aminul Islam, the chairman of both the factories.
BB said it found Tk 1, 95, 92, 770 in 21 accounts of New Wave Buttons and New Wave Style, and the chairman of both the factories Bazlus Samad Adnan.
BB said it found Tk 5,123 in three accounts operated by Ether Tex Limited.
The central bank’s policy department director Aminul Haque Majumder submitted the report.
The report said, to comply with the HC order, BB froze all the accounts operated by Sohel Rana, the clothing factories and their owners.
Rana Plaza housing the five clothing factories collapsed on April 24 killing 1,127 people, mostly women apparel workers, and leaving over 2,000 others seriously injured, with many losing their limbs.
On April 28, Rapid Action Battalion arrested Sohel Rana at the border town of Benapole when ‘he was trying to flee to India.’
The factory owners were arrested earlier.
On April 25, the High Court in a suo moto order asked the police to arrest and produce Sohel Rana and the factory owners before it.
Later, the HC directed the central bank to freeze the accounts operated by Sohel Rana and the factory owners to facilitate payment of compensations to the victims of the Rana Plaza disaster and submit the bank statements.
The HC gave the order while hearing two writ public interest writ petitions, one filed by Ain o Salish Kendra and Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust and the second one by Supreme Court lawyers Mahin Muqtadir Rahman and Kamal Hossain Meahzi, and Daffodil International University law teacher Khandker Dider-us-Salam over the Rana Plaza disaster.
Sara Hossain, counsel for ASK and BLAST, told New Age that the money the BB found in Sohel Rana’s bank accounts was very small.
‘Sohel Rana might have transferred money from his accounts after the collapse of Rana Plaza,’ she said.
‘We will bring the matter to the court at the next hearing,’ she said.