Islami Bank MD sent on forced leave

Muhammad Munirul Mowla, the Managing Director (MD) of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited, has sent on a three months forced leave with effect from Monday.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the bank's board of directors on Sunday in response to Munirul Mowla's alleged involvement with loan irregularities of S Alam Group. 

At the same time, the bank has decided to write to the Bangladesh Bank requesting actions against him.

Besides, Omar Faruk Khan, Additional MD of the bank, has been appointed as acting MD for now, according to a source. 

S Alam Group took over Islami Bank on January 5, 2017, with the help of former Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir and an intelligence agency. The bank's audit revealed that they had withdrawn Tk 91,000 crore from this bank alone through various means of corruptions. After S Alam took over Islami Bank, Monirul Mowla became influential in the bank. He was quickly promoted and first appointed as Additional Managing Director, and later as MD in December 2020.

After the fall of the Awami League government on August 5, most of the bank's board members and most of the DMDs went into hiding. Monirul Maula remained in the hospital for unknown reasons.

A director of Islami Bank told that there was a demand to remove Monirul Maula ever since the new board took charge. However, we were waiting for the audit report of the external auditor. Now the report is almost at the final stage. The audit report found his involvement in various irregularities including the loan fraud of the S Alam Group and the fraud of Tk 13,645 crore of the Nabil Group. For this reason, it has been decided to send him on force leave. He will be informed of the matter by an official letter in a day or two.