Dhaka: A Dhaka court on Wednesday sentenced former Dhaka South Jubo League president Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat, an alleged kingpin of the illegal casino business in Dhaka, to 20 years in jail in two separate cases. Judge of Dhaka Special Judge court-6, Md Zakaria Hossain, handed down a 10-year jail term to Samrat in connection with a money laundering case and imposed a fine of Tk 10 lakh, with an additional six months of rigorous imprisonment in default.
According to United News of Bangladesh, the same court also sentenced Samrat to ten years in jail for amassing wealth beyond known income sources and fined him another Tk 10 lakh. Additionally, the court ordered the confiscation of Samrat’s property. Charges were framed against Samrat in these cases on July 17 of the previous year, followed by a warrant issued for his arrest.
Samrat gained notoriety following an anti-casino operation led by the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) on September 18, 2019, which uncovered illegal gambling activities in Dhaka’s Motijheel area. In the aftermath of the crackdown, Samrat went into hiding, but he was eventually apprehended by Rab on October 7, 2019, along with his close associate Enamul Haque Arman in Cumilla’s Chauddagram.
On the day of his arrest, Rab conducted a search at Samrat’s Kakrail office in the capital, recovering a foreign pistol with bullets, 1,160 yaba pills, 19 bottles of foreign liquor, two kangaroo hides, and electric devices allegedly used for torture. A mobile court subsequently sentenced Samrat to six months in jail under the Wildlife Conservation Act for possessing unauthorized wildlife items, and Rab-1 filed additional cases under the Arms Act and the Narcotics Control Act.
Following investigations, police submitted charges to the court on November 6 of the following year. The tribunal examined testimonies from 10 witnesses before delivering the verdict. Samrat was granted bail in August 2022 but went into hiding again after August 5, 2024. In November 2019, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed a case against Samrat for amassing wealth of Tk 2.94 crore beyond known sources. By November 2020, the ACC submitted a chargesheet accusing him of accumulating wealth amounting to Tk 222.88 crore beyond his known income sources.