The Detective Branch (DB) of the police arrested the wife of the Chairman of the Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB) for her alleged involvement in the business of fake certificates.
Additional Commissioner Haroon Or Rashid said that Sehela Parvin, wife of the BTEB Chairman Ali Akbar Khan, was arrested on Saturday from an Apartment in Uttara Sector 18.
He said evidence of Sehela Parvin’s financial transactions with the gang involved in making fake certificates, mark sheets, registration cards, and admit cards of the Technical Education Board has been found.
“This gang has made a lot of money by making more than 5,000 fake certificates and marksheets in the last few years,” said Haroon Or Rashid, who is also the Chief of Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
Apart from Sehela Parvin, five other people were earlier arrested on this charge; Three of them have given a confessional statement in court, police said.
In a press conference at the DMP Media Center in the capital on Sunday, Haroon Or Rashid said that after tracing the gang, police raided Mirpur’s Pirer Bagh on April 1 and arrested two people. They are Bangladesh Technical Education Board’s computer cell system analyst AKM Shamsuzzaman and Faisal, a fired employee of the same organisation.
“During the raid, many fake certificates, mark sheets, registration cards, and admit cards were recovered from them. Besides, thousands of original certificates, blank copies of mark sheets, hundreds of forged certificates, transcripts, biodata, and essential documents stolen from the Technical Education Board were recovered from their possession.”
Haroon Or Rashid said that based on the information provided by the arrested Shamsuzzaman and Faisal, Sanjida Akhter Koli, the director of Gorai Survey Engineering Institute, was arrested from Kushtia Sadar Police Station area on April 5. All three later gave a confessional statement in court.
DB officer Haroon said the name of chairman Ali Akbar Khan’s wife appears in Koli’s statement.
Police then examined the devices used by Shamsuzzaman, Faisal and Koli and arrested Sardar Golam Mostafa alias Mostafizur Rahman, 48, principal of Hilphul Phujul Technical and BM College in Kamrangirchar on Thursday and Maksudur Rahman alias Mamun, 40, director of Dhaka Technical School and College (Medical) in Jatrabari area on Friday. Besides, Sehela Parvin, 54, was arrested onSaturday from Uttara for her involvement in this cycle.
The press conference reads that Shamsuzzaman and Sanjida Akhter Koli have a ‘close’ relationship with Sehela Parvin, the chairman’s wife.
Stating that ‘money was transacted’ between them, Haroon said, “System analyst AKM Shamsuzzaman used government passwords and authorization to upload fake certificates in exchange for money on the Technical Education Board website, so there was no chance of getting caught. Besides, they used to exchange money transaction information through WhatsApp.”
In response to a question from journalists at the press conference the police officer said, “We will not exempt anyone, whoever he or she may be. So far, we have not exempted anyone. No matter how big shots are involved, if our evidence shows the chairman’s involvement, we will also grill him.”
The Additional Commissioner of Police said, “The focal person for submission of applications related to addition, deletion and change of information of students of an educational institute or institution is the chairman of the concerned education board or the controller of examinations. By no means are systems analysts or computer operators are the focal persons. System analysts or computer operators should perform these sensitive tasks under strict confidentiality under the direction of the organisation’s regulators.”
“But some directors and principals of public and private technical schools and colleges, polytechnic institutes, and survey institutes located in different upazilas, districts, and divisional towns of Bangladesh are completely illegally and unethically conducting student registration, roll number creation, result modification, and correction of name and date of birth information in exchange for money on WhatsApp, with computer operators and system analysts,” he added.
The police official also said 25 to 30 corrupt persons in such institutions have been identified. They will also be brought under the law.
DB sources said Shamsuzzaman confessed to “providing money to Sehela Parvin on multiple occasions. Some senior officials of the technical education board, journalists, Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) officials, college principals, and directors received shares of the money earned from the certificate business.”
During interrogation, Sehela Parvin claimed she had no direct acquaintance with Shamsuzzaman. Following phone calls and meet-ups, Sanjida Akter developed a good relationship with her.
Later, she introduced Shamsuzzaman and asked Sehela to recommend for his promotion to senior scale. However, Sehela clarified that her husband does not care about her recommendations.
Sehela further said she borrowed money from Sanjida and promised to refund it in installments. Shamsuzzaman delivered the cash to her residence in the capital’s Uttara area.
It was learnt that Shamsuzzaman was involved in producing fake certificates, registration cards, and mark sheets. Principals and directors of various colleges contacted him for counterfeit certificates, and he would supply those certificates for Tk 35,000 to 50,000 each.
