The Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday served notices on former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina to submit their wealth statements as part of its initiative to find out whether there is any ground for filing graft cases against the two. In the notices, the government anti-graft watchdog asked the chiefs of BNP and Awami League (AL) to submit statements of their movable and immovable properties to the commission within seven working days from the date of the notification.
AL President Sheikh Hasina, who had been arrested on Monday and sent to a sub-jail, was served with the notice through the jail authorities while the notice to Khaleda was sent to her Mainul Road residence in Dhaka Cantonment.
Talking to reporters on the ACC premises, its Secretary Mokhles Ur Rahman said the decision was taken yesterday morning. "This is a routine work of the commission," the secretary added.
On receiving the two most prominent leaders' wealth statements, the ACC will crosscheck the statements with the information gathered by itself with assistance from intelligence agencies. "The ACC will file cases against them, if they are found to be suppressing information about their wealth in the statements," a source in the ACC said.
Sources in intelligence agencies said they already have information about the wealth of the two leaders. The intelligence agencies gathered the information by collecting the two leaders' wealth statements submitted to the Election Commission during filing of their nominations, and from NBR. Besides, they collected information about the two leaders' bank accounts and examined whether there were any unusual transactions, the sources said.