Shahed’s illegal arms, counterfeit currency operations now under probe

The enormous scope of fraudulent activities – allegedly committed by Regent Hospital Chairman Md Shahed alias Shahed Karim – has overwhelmed the investigators probing the Covid-19 test scam case.

The investigators told The Business Standard that they are now looking into Shahed's illegal arms and counterfeit currency operations.

Responding to a query, an additional deputy commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) Uttara Division said, "There is no end to Shahed's involvement in different fraudulent activities.

"No one could escape from his clutches, and he victimised many people – from day labourers to businessmen and from doctors to landlords. He is a master conman, and he might be one of the best in the world."

The DB official continued, "We are getting many allegations against Shahed, and even some policemen in Chattogram were conned by him in the recent years. Though there are a large number of allegations and fraudulent activities, we have to sort the case out soon.

"We are presently looking into Shahed's illegal arms and counterfeit currency operations. We will thoroughly investigate how and from whom he bought those illegal arms, and for what purpose he used them."

Meanwhile, 76 workers of Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project (MRT-6, also known as the Metro Rail Project) on Tuesday filed a case against Shahed with the DMP's Uttara west police station.

According to the case statement, the workers of the metro rail project claimed that Shahed provided them with false Covid-19 certificates when they were asked to submit test reports to rejoin work in May.

"Shahed and his hospital gave us false reports, which also risked our jobs in the project. The perpetrator should be punished," said the case petitioner, wishing not to be named.

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) – who detained Shahed from Satkhira on July 15 – has been assigned to investigate the cases filed against the Regent Hospital chairman.

Sujoy Sarker, assistant director of RAB's Legal and Media Wing, confirmed the matter to The Business Standard on Tuesday night, adding, "We had applied through the police headquarters to take over the charge of investigation, and now we have been assigned."

Besides, the Anti-Corruption Commission is planning to file a case against Shahed and three others for embezzling around Tk1.5 crore from the NRB Bank.

"The anti-graft body took the decision after finding evidence of their involvement in misappropriation of the money during primary investigation," said ACC's Public Relations Officer Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya.

The three others are – Ibrahim Khalil, managing director of Regent Hospital; Md Sohanur Rahman, former principal officer of NRB Bank; and Wahid Bin Ahmed, vice-president of the bank.

The ACC mentioned that the four accused jointly planned and then embezzled Tk1,51,81,365 from the NRB Bank Ltd between November 9, 2014 and January 15, 2018, by misusing their positions of power.

On Tuesday, a lawyer representing one of Shahed's victims lodged two petitions with a Dhaka court for showing the Regent Group chairman as arrested in two cases filed over the misappropriation of Tk3.68 crore from a businessman.

Advocate Monir Hossain, lawyer of the complainant, submitted the petitions to Metropolitan Magistrate Court-23 of Dhaka. He also requested that Shahed be produced before the court on August 13, the next scheduled date for hearing.