Chittagong Bureau

Former Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud and his family members grabbed two ships from a dockyard in Chittagong without paying a single amount. Its price is around Tk 74 crore . The incident was about three and a half years ago.

An official of Chittagong's FMC Group filed a case against the former minister and his family members in this incident. The case alleged that the former minister's family took delivery of a fishing vessel by force of arms from FMC Dockyard, a subsidiary of FMC Group, without paying the construction bill. Apart from this another container ship was taken in the same manner. For not agreeing to deliver the latter, the company's employees were allegedly beaten up, the office vandalized and the chairman of the company held at gunpoint and took signatures on stamps and pads. Then they are harassed.

The group's head clerk Feroz Ahmad filed the case at Chittagong's Panchlaish police station on Tuesday night. Seven people have been named in the case. Unknown 10 to 12 people have been accused. Confirming the filing of the case, SI Kamruzzaman Khan of Panchlaish police station told this correspondent that further legal action will be taken after investigation.

The other defendants in the case are Hasan Mahmud's wife Nuran Fatima, younger brothers Khaled Mahmud and Ershad Mahmud, former minister's personal assistant Emrul Karim Rashed, their family company The Bismillah Marine Services Limited General Manager Syed Noor Uddin and head of the account department of the company Mohammad Eradul Haque.

FMC Dockyard has contracted The Bismillah Marine Services, owned by Hasan Mahmood and his wife, to build a container and a fishing vessel, according to the complaint filed by the plaintiffs and company officials to Samakal. Hasan Mahmood and his wife took delivery of a fishing vessel worth Tk 24 crore without paying any money. The container ship worth 50 crore rupees also kept pressing for delivery without paying any money. They had a disagreement with the chairman of the FMC group. Later he took that too without paying any money.

It is also mentioned in the statement that due to the dispute, on March 7, 2021, on the instructions of Hasan Mahmud and his wife, the other accused came with weapons and tried to enter the FMC office. At that time, when one of their janitors interfered, they tried to kill him by beating and strangling him. Later, he entered the office and injured and vandalized the officials and caused a loss of two lakh taka. FMC Group chairman Yachin Chowdhury entered the office and stopped the illegal weapons and took 15 to 20 stamps and signature of the chairman on the dockyard pad. Using it later causes irreparable damage to the organization.

Later on getting information about the preparation of the case, the accused threatened to abduct, disappear, imprison and kill FMC group officials and chairman with false cases.