Staff Correspondent

All the shares owned by S Alam Group in Islami Bank have been taken over by the government.

Bangladesh Bank has also decided to dissolve the board of directors of Islami Bank for now.

Governor Ahsan H Mansur said the board of all banks owned by the group will be dissolved gradually.

The governor made the remarks at a press conference in the central bank on Wednesday.

Mansur said those who borrowed money from a bank but did not return will not be able to get away. The authorities will lawfully recover the money.

When asked about the operation of the banks where the boards will be dissolved, the governor said the government will not take responsibility for any banks.

He said independent directors will run these banks for now. If any group holds more than 2 percent shares except S Alam Group, they will be able to join the board of directors afterwards.

When asked how much loan the conglomerate grabbed, Mansur said, “It is not known yet how much money it had borrowed. We do not have information on unnamed loans yet. This will take a bit of time.”

He said the boards of weak banks will be dissolved. The National Bank board has already been dissolved like Islami Bank. The same will apply to others.

Mansur said the central bank is currently working to save the economy, focusing on attempts to prevent any foreign debt crunch.

Everyone will have to work within the rules so that no questions arise in foreign transactions, he added.

S Alam Group forcefully took control of Islami Bank through share purchases in 2017. In January of that year, the bank’s chairman, vice chairman and managing directors were detained by an intelligence agency. The bank was then forced to change its ownership. After that, the group took out unnamed loans from the bank, leading to its collapse.

The group took out Tk 750 billion from the bank, including Tk 670 billion alone from the Khatunganj branch in Chattogram.

The bank officials launched efforts to free the banks from the clasp of S Alam Group after the change in the government.

A protest took place at the bank’s main offices in Motijheel over the control of the bank on Aug 11. Several bank officials suffered bullet injuries during the protest.