Staff Reporter:
Depositors of Islami Bank Bangladesh PLC staged demonstrations for the seventh consecutive days on Tuesday to press home their seven-point demand, including the immediate removal of bank’s newly ap-pointed ‘disputed’ Chairman Md Khurshid Alam.
Under the banner of the “Islami Bank Sachetan Grahak Forum” (Islami Bank Conscious Depositors’ Fo-rum), the depositors gathered in front of the bank’s central office in the Dilkusha area of Motijheel around 10:00am.
They held a sit-in there to press home their demands.
The other demands are reinstatement of Omar Faruk Khan to the post of managing director of the bank, exclusion of anyone linked to past financial plundering from the bank’s Board of Directors, repeal of Section 18(A) of the Bank Resolution Act, recovery of looted funds by liquidating the seized domestic assets and ownership stakes held by the controversial S Alam Group, implementing legal barriers to en-sure S Alam Group can never regain control of Islami Bank or any other financial institution, and bring-ing all individuals involved in looting Islami Bank and the wider banking sector to justice with exempla-ry punishment.
Speaking at the rally, demonstrators alleged that the bank was unlawfully taken over by the previous regime in 2017 after which S Alam Group systematically emptied the institution.
They stated that while the bank was liberated following the mass uprising on August 5, 2024, a fresh conspiracy is now targeting the financial institution.
Following the political transition, former Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Khurshid Alam went into hiding, yet the bank is now being handed back to him, the protesters said, adding that they will never accept a corrupt individual like Khurshid Alam as chairman.
The depositors launched the protests on June 1 after the Eid-ul-Azha holiday ended.
On the day, a similar demonstration against Khurshid Alam’s appointment was met with a police crack-down, where law enforcers lobbed batons, sound grenades, and water cannons against the agitators.
