PK Halder fled thru Benapole 

Prashant Kumar (PK) Halder, who embezzled and laundered around Tk3,500 crore from several financial institutions including People's Leasing, has left the country by road through Benapole land port of Jashore.

The higher authorities of the Immigration Police informed this in a letter to the Attorney General's Office on Monday. 

The High Court bench headed by Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder will hear the matter on 15 March.

Deputy Attorney General AKM Amin Uddin Manik disclosed the information to the media.

He said that on 22 October, 2019, the ACC sent a letter to the immigration police, instructing to take initiative so that PK Haldar and a few others could not leave the country. The letter reached the immigration police on 23 October at 4 pm. But 13 minutes before (October 23 at 3:47 pm) the letter reached the immigration police, PK Halder left the country through Benapole. In other words, he left the country before immigration police received the letter banning PK Haldar from leaving the country.

According to the higher authorities of the immigration police, after receiving the letter from the ACC, they fixed several files and issued notices to all the airports and land ports of the country at 5pm banning PK Haldar from leaving the country.

On 15 February last, the High Court wanted to know how PK Halder fled the country despite being banned from leaving the country. 

The HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Mohiuddin Shamim passed the order.

At the same time, the court also asked to submit a list of immigration officials and who was in charge of the ACC on the day PK Halder fled the country.

Besides, the court wanted to know what steps have been taken regarding the complete list of employees of the three departments of Bangladesh Bank since 2008. The central bank has been asked to inform by March 15.

PK Halder is now in Canada, his lawyers told the High Court in October last year. At a hearing on 20 October, PK Halder's lawyer told the court that PK Halder wanted to return to Dhaka on an Emirates Airlines flight from Dubai. He requested not to arrest him after his return.

But the High Court directed the law enforcement agencies to arrest him as soon as he returned to the country after hearing the matter. After that, Halder did not return.