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Lawmakers take a swipe at govt

Ask it to arrest culprits found in Khaled-led probe right away

Staff Correspondent
Several lawmakers of the Awami League-led alliance in parliament yesterday blasted the government over its failure to stabilise the stockmarket, and demanded immediate arrest of those a probe body had held responsible for the market crash.
They warned the government of
a backlash from the people, especially at the next general election, if it failed to deal with the share market crisis.
They also demanded that a discussion be held in the House on the share market crash.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Finance Minister AMA Muhith were presentinthe House. The lawmakers also came down hard on the government over police action on share market investors on different occasions.
“Why did the government not try those responsible for the stockmarket debacle after they had been identified by the probe body headed by Ibrahim Khaled?” asked senior AL leader Tofail Ahmed as he took the floor on a point of order.
Amid applause from other legislators, the AL leader said, “It is true that people cannot move against us as we are in power now. They will try us on polling day at the next general election if the government fails to tackle the present market situation."
Following a share market debacle in January last year, the government formed a probe body headed by Krishi Bank Chairman Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled. The committee submitted its report to the finance minister in April.
The report listed 100 people who had received shares in private placement. Many influential figures, politicians and businessmen are among them.
The report said crooked traders took Tk 20,000 crore out of the market through direct listing, private placement, preferential shares, mutual fund and bookbuilding method.
Referring to two stockmarket investors, who committed suicide recently in despair over the steady fall in the stockmarket, Tofail said, "Though in government, we, the people's representatives, cannot remain silent in this situation."
“I could not hold back tears when I saw the four-year child of sharemarket investor Juboraj, who took his life
recently. I had no words to console his wife during a visit to Jubair's house."
He questioned why the benchmark index of the coun-try's premier bourse had jumped to 8,000 points and then plummeted to only 3,000.
He said the soaring prices of stocks drew small investors to the share market but they lost everything due to the market debacle.
Rashed Khan Menon, president of Workers Party, and Hasanul Haq Inu, president of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, took the floor and slammed the government over its failure to bring stability to the stockmarket.
“Stability cannot be brought to the share market by police action on investors,” said Menon.
He said the share market issue, which was now being discussed in the international forum, was maligning the country's image.
“Bad days lie ahead of us if we fail to tackle the share market crisis and the overall economic situation.”
Inu said investors' confidence could not be restored until those involved in the stock market scam were arrested and tried.
He called upon the prime minister to take steps to arrest the culprits. If anyone in the government is involved in the scam, the person should be ousted from it, he said.
Fazlul Azim, an independent lawmaker, also criticised the government and the finance minister for not taking action against the persons responsible for the market crash.
Pointing to the probe report, he said thousands of crores of taka had been siphoned off the share market.