Sonali Bank official sentenced to 2 years in prison for defrauding farmers in Chattogram

A Chattogram court has sentenced a Sonali Bank official to two years of rigorous imprisonment from embezzling money from customers' bank accounts at a branch in Satkania upazila of Chattogram.

Chattogram Divisional Special Court Judge, Munshi Abdul Majid, on Thursday also imposed a fine of Tk40,000 and four more months of imprisonment for non-payment in one of the six cases filed against the banker for pocketing customers' money.

The verdict pronounced on Thursday was for a case filed against him for misappropriating Tk100 in 1997. Sonali Bank Satkania Upazila Branch Manager Abdus Sabur filed the case with Satkania police station on 31 May that year.

Chattogram Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Deputy Assistant Director, Saifullah Mohammad Emran, who was investigating the case, filed a charge sheet in the court on 30 November.

ACC Public Prosecutor Advocate Mahmudul Haque Mahmud said that when banker Md Yunus, 50, was in-charge of the Sonali Bank agriculture branch at Marfola Bazar in the upazila from 1996-2001, would receive money from mostly illiterate and poor farmers and pocket the money instead of depositing it in their accounts. 

Facing six cases, Md Yunus, who is in hiding, was sentenced to five years in prison for another case on 22 February. ACC is investigating all the cases, said court sources.