Dhaka, Mar 22 (bdnews24.com) — RanksTel chairman A Rauf Chowdhury and eight other company executives secured anticipatory bail in the High Court on Monday in relation to the case filed by BTRC alleging that they were involved in illegally operating unauthorised VoIP equipment.
The other eight to receive bail in the case are the directors Amanullah Chowdhury, Anwar Hossain, Ashraf Uddin, Fazle Selm, Zakia Rauf Chowdhury, Jhumu Rauf Chowdhury, Suana Rauf Chowdhury and AKM Samsuddin.
However, on Saturday, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Shamima Parvin, rejected a bail petition filed the three men who had been arrested by RAB on Mar 19 when it searched the RanksTel headquarters.
The men are: general manager (engineering) Sheikh Kamruzzaman, deputy general manager (engineering) Mominur Rahman Chowdhury and deputy general manager (sales) Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan Noman.
The court however rejected a petition by the police applying to take the men into its custody for questioning.
"The court said that it is a responsibility of experts to enquire whether RanksTel has a legal licence. It is not for the police or RAB to do," BTRC junior adviser Kawsar Ahmed said.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) had filed a case on Saturday against a total of 12 RanksTel executives under the Telecommunication Act-2001
RanksTel, a private land phone operator, was the third company to be raided by BTRC on suspicion of illegal VoIP operations in under a week.
The telecoms regulator in two previous raids, on Mar 14 and 16, said it found evidence of illegal call operations against telephone companies Dhaka Phone and WorldTel.
Five top executives of Dhaka Phone officials were sent to jail after being arrested on charges of running unlicensed VoIP operations.
bdnews24.com/corr/rn/db/1339h.
