37 Pabna farmers get bail in case over unpaid bank debt

Twelve of the farmers were arrested and sent to jail over unpaid loans ranging from Tk 25,000-Tk 30,000 each

A court in Pabna has granted bail to 37 farmers, including 12 who were sent to jail on Friday, in a case over their failure to repay loans taken from a state-owned bank.

Md Shamsuzzaman, the judge of Pabna Senior Judicial Magistrate Court-2, first issued bail orders on Sunday for the 12 farmers who were ordered to jail by another court on Friday.

The judge then ordered the remaining 25 farmers to surrender to the court, which they promptly did in the afternoon.

He later granted them bail, said Abdul Mojid, the lawyer for the Bangladesh Samabaya Bank, one of the oldest cooperative banks operating since 1977, from where the farmers took the loans.

Ishwardi police on Saturday said the case was filed in 2021 by Mozammel Haque, the then manager of the district branch of the bank, against the farmers for failing to pay off the loan amounts ranging from Tk 25,000 to Tk 30,000 each.

During preliminary quizzing, some of the farmers claimed they were arrested despite paying off their debt in full while some others admitted that they had failed to follow up on the loans for a while, but claimed that their overdue balances were small.

Mozammel said the case was part of a routine process against people who fail to clear off an overdue balance and it was filed after receiving necessary consent from the higher-ups of the bank.

Kazi Sajjad Iqbal Liton, one of the defence lawyers, said the farmers expressed joy and relief after receiving bail.