Staff Reporter :
Former Vice-Chancellor (VC) of Begum Rokeya University (BRU), Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, has been sent to jail as a Dhaka court rejected his bail plea in a corruption case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
On Wednesday, Kalimullah was produced before the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge Md Zakir Hossain Galib.
During the hearing, the ACC’s investigation officer requested that he be kept in custody until the probe is completed, while his legal counsel appealed for bail.
After hearing both sides, the court denied bail and ordered him to be sent to prison.
The ACC filed the case on 18 July, naming Kalimullah and four others as accused. The complaint was lodged by ACC Assistant Director Minhaj Bin Islam over allegations of embezzling funds allocated for development work at Begum Rokeya University.
The other accused in the case are:
AKM Nur-un-Nabi, another former vice-chancellor and project director of the university, Md Jahangir Alam, former executive engineer and secretary of the Tender Evaluation Committee, Md A Salam Bacchu, contractor, and MM Habibur Rahman.
According to the case statement, the accused colluded to abuse their power and breach public trust by making unauthorised changes to approved designs of development projects, bypassing the original Development Project Proposal (DPP).
Without obtaining approval from the relevant ministry or department, they signed contracts worth over Tk 30 crore.
The complaint further alleges that security deposits deducted from the contractor’s running bills were deposited as Fixed Deposit Receipts (FDRs), and no objection certificates (NOCs) were issued to allow the contractor to take loans against those FDRs.
This ultimately led to the misappropriation of government funds amounting to Tk 4 crore.
Moreover, despite legal restrictions, advance payments were made to the contractor and the corresponding bank guarantees released before any adjustments were made.
A second consultancy firm was appointed without following proper procurement rules and ignoring the design provided by the first consultancy firm.
There are also allegations that tenders were not evaluated according to the Public Procurement Rules (PPR) 2008, despite the presence of abnormally inflated pricing commonly known as “front-loading.”
The case has sparked renewed concern over corruption in public universities and the misuse of development funds.
