‘I was forced to sign resignation letter’: Former Islami Bank MD Mannan

Islami Bank’s former managing director Abdul Mannan today (30 August) claimed that he was forced to resign from his post at the bank on 5 January 2017.

S Alam Group had forced Mannan to resign from his post at the Shariah-based bank after he was taken hostage by members of a security agency, reports The Daily Star.

“I was forced to resign on a pad that the Islami Bank has never used since its inception in 1983 till date,” Mannan told a webinar.

The Forum for Bangladesh Studies organised the webinar on ‘Elimination of Occupancy in the Banking Sector: Will the Plight End?’.

Commemorating the deaths in the recent student-led mass uprising that ousted the Awami League government on 5 August, he said, “Now I think I have freedom of expression. Earlier, I did not have the courage to speak even while staying abroad.”

Mannan said the day he was taken hostage and forced to resign at gunpoint, many top officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) had stayed in their offices until late at night to accept his resignation.

After taking control of the board by removal of Mannan and other top executives, the Chattogram-based conglomerate, owned by Mohammad Saiful Alam, and its associated companies took loans of Tk74,900 crore from the bank, which is nearly half of of Islami Bank’s total outstanding loans as of March this year, according to the documents of the bank.

Having returned to the country after seven and a half years, Mannan said, “While abroad, some journalists from Bangladesh tried to contact me, but I didn’t speak because I didn’t feel safe. I lived in constant fear. I never thought I’d be able to breathe freely again in Bangladesh.”