A specialized court has instructed the authorities to issue a red notice via Interpol for the arrest of British Member of Parliament Tulip Siddiq, who is the niece of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The case revolves around the alleged illegal acquisition of a flat in Gulshan-2 by providing undue benefits to a private developer.
Judge Md Sabbir Faiz of the Metropolitan Senior Special Judge’s Court in Dhaka issued the order in response to a request from Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Assistant Director AKM Motuza Ali Sagar, as confirmed by court bench assistant Riaz Hossain.
Previously, on February 18, arrest warrants were issued for Tulip, representing the Hampstead and Highgate constituency in London, and Sardar Mosharraf Hossain, a former assistant legal adviser at Rajuk, upon acceptance of the charge sheet in the case. The court has scheduled March 8 as the deadline for a progress report on executing the arrest warrants.
The case, filed by the anti-graft body on April 15 last year, implicates Tulip, Mosharraf, and Shah Md Khasruzzaman, another former assistant legal adviser at Rajuk, for allegedly unlawfully obtaining a flat from Eastern Housing Limited. The accused are alleged to have collaborated to misuse their authority to acquire and register the flat in Eastern Housing’s Gulshan-2 project without any payment.
The ACC filed the charge sheet against Tulip and Mosharraf on January 13 this year. Notably, between November 27 last year and February 2 this year, Sheikh Hasina received a 36-year prison sentence in six cases related to the Purbachal plot scam in Dhaka. Tulip, her elder niece, was also sentenced to six years in prison in three of these cases.