ILFSL depositors demand punishment of SK Sur Chowdhury, Shah Alam

Depositors of International Leasing and Financial Services Ltd (ILFSL) have called for punitive action against former Bangladesh Bank deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury and former executive director Shah Alam, alleging their involvement in the misappropriation of funds by PK Halder, a former managing director of ILFSL.

SK Sur and Shah Alam had directly assisted PK Halder in looting depositors' money from the leasing company, so they should be arrested and punished accordingly, said Tasdiq Ahmed, a coordinator of the Individual Depositors' Forum of International Leasing.

The forum also urged the authorities concerned to pay back their deposited money with compensation.

They made the demands at a press conference at National Press Club in Dhaka.

The depositors demanded the current board of the non-bank financial institution to be reconstituted.

In 1996, ILFSL got registered as a public limited company and got licence from the Bangladesh Bank to run as an NBFI.

Until 2015, the company was doing well, but after that its condition started worsening, according to an ILFSL financial statement.

A Bangladesh Bank special investigation found that Tk 1,596.14 crore was transferred from ILFSL between 2015 and 2019 as loans, violating the company rules and regulations, through 48 accounts of various companies and firms where a number of the NBFIs' directors and shareholders had stakes.

Fraudulent businessman Proshanta Kumar Halder or PK Halder—who controlled ILFSL's majority shares after buying them under names of different individuals, including his family members—was directly involved in this embezzlement, according to the central bank probe report.

In 2022, SK Sur Chowdhury and Shah Alam were questioned by the Anti-Corruption Commission over a loan scandal involving International Leasing. But no action against them has yet been taken.