PBI arrests businessman Kazi Ertaza on fraud charges involving disputed land

Ertaza’s connection with the case was not immediately clear, but a PBI spokesperson said his name came up during their investigation

A director of the country’s premier trade body has been arrested in a fraud case filed over a disputed piece of land in Dhaka.

Police picked up Kazi Ertaza Hassan, an elected director of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry or FBCCI, from his office in Dhaka’s Gulshan on Tuesday evening, confirmed Police Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Abu Yusuf.

Saiful Islam Bhuyain, deputy managing director of Ashiyan Lands Development, filed the fraud case on Jan 10 this year at Khilgaon Police Station against Northern University Bangladesh or NUB officials over a dispute centring a land procurement back in 2013.

Police earlier had arrested Prof Abu Yousuf Md Abdullah, chairman of the NUB trustee board, in this connection.

Ertaza’s connection with the case was not immediately clear, but PBI’s Abu Yusuf said his name came up during their investigation.

Ertaza is also the publisher and editor of the vernacular daily Bhorer Pata. The office of the daily and NUB’s former campus were housed in the same building in Dhaka’s Farmgate.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiff stated that Prof Abdullah, Reazul Alam and Selim Munshi had purchased 0.669 hectares of land at the Ashiyan City project in the capital's Dakkhinkhan in 2013 to build the permanent campus of the university.

Reazul was also arrested earlier in this connection.

DMD Saiful Islam Bhuyain alleged in the case statement that as per the sale contract, the trio paid Tk 300 million for the piece of land and had promised to pay the remaining Tk 200 million within Aug 30 that year, which they never paid.

Instead, Saiful claimed that the NUB authorities in 2019 forged papers which claimed they had made the payment in full and Ashiyan’s Chairman Nazrul Islam Bhuyian has already agreed to register the piece of land under the university’s trust.

The NUB authorities filed a lawsuit on Feb 9 last year in this connection, claiming the Ashiyan authorities have been demanding Tk 200 million from them by forging corroborative contract papers.

A Dhaka court issued arrest warrants for the land developer group’s Chairman Nazrul and four others. They had later secured bail from the same court.