UK-based Bangladeshi investigative journalist Zulkarnain Saer, affiliated with Qatar’s Al Jazeera, has accused Transcom Group of being a mafia under CEO Simeen Rahman’s leadership.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Saer called for justice for the suspicious death of Simeen Rahman’s brother, Arshad Waliur Rahman. He outlined the troubling details surrounding Arshad's death and raised concerns about Simeen Rahman’s potentially mysterious involvement in the incident.
Below is the unabridged version of Zulkarnain Saer’s Facebook post:
Simeen Rahman’s Transcom 2.0 is Bangladesh 2.0’s mafia
Imagine this: one morning, you get a call that your apparently healthy brother, who lives alone, is unresponsive. What would you do? You straightaway call an ambulance. If he is pronounced dead by the time the ambulance reaches the hospital, you would file a police report and demand to know the reason behind his death. You would insist on a postmortem and demand a thorough investigation into his death to rule out any foul play. Sadly, none of these steps were followed in the case of Mr Arshad Waliur Rahman, the eldest of four children of Late Mr Latifur Rahman, the founder of Transcom Group
Arshad was found dead on the morning of 16th of June, 2023 in the rented apartment on road 36 of Gulshan where he lived by himself. And the circumstances surrounding his death couldn’t be fishier. Just 10 days earlier, he sought legal counsel to contest his mother and sister Simeen in court for cheating him and his middle sister Shahzreh Huq out of their rightful inheritance. As the only son of Mr Latifur Rahman, he was supposed to inherit the bigger share of his father’s hard-earned wealth. But he was given scraps in a phoney “deed of settlement” drawn up by his mother and Simeen after his father died in 2020. Here, it must be mentioned that his relationship with his mother and Simeen, the eldest of his three sisters, was damaged beyond repair for a long time. On learning about his resolve to fight the matter in court, his mother filed a counter-case against him and Shahzreh on the 11th of June, 2023.
Five days later, he was found dead. And who were the first to arrive at the scene? His mother and Simeen. And not his other living sister Shahzreh -- his emergency contact for everything. Shahzreh, in fact, found out about his state much later and because of the compassion of their father’s household staff of 52 years. When Shahzreh arrived at Arshad’s flat with her husband, she found the apartment was buzzing with Transcom and Eskayef staff and her mother, sister and nephew dictating proceedings. Shahzreh found Arshad spread across the breadth of his bed and his arms stretched wide open. His body was well cold, indicating he had been dead for a while, and there were black rings on his finger and toenails. After this, things started to get more bizarre.
Simeen was instructing someone to swiftly dig open the grave of their youngest sister Shazneen Tasnim Rahman, who was murdered in 1998, as Arshad has to be buried within a couple of hours. After Shazneen’s death, Mr Latifur Rahman bought eight burial spots in Banani Graveyard for his family, so there was no need to dig up Shazneen’s grave. A death certificate is needed for burial, so Arshad’s body was taken to a hospital. Bizarrely, Eskayef's staff insisted on handling this step themselves and asked the family to go home. At the hospital, Eskayef's staff was pressuring the management to wrap up the procedures expediently as the body had to be buried right after the Jummah prayers.
The duty doctor said a police report needed to be filed as he was found dead, but Eskayef's staff pressured him to skip this vital step. They were just agitating for a piece of paper from a hospital that certified Arshad was dead and that was the end of the matter. The death certificate that was issued said the cause of Arshad’s death was “Unknown (found dead)” and there was no mention of the time of death. There was no attempt made to collect samples for a postmortem to find the cause of death. The hospital authorities, however, carried out one of their responsibilities: they insisted on handing over the body to a family member and not to Eskayef staff. Shahzreh’s husband insisted on accompanying the body to the hospital, so he was on hand to take custody of the body. But the death certificate could not be given to him as Simeen wanted it for her records and the hospital authorities complied with the Eskayef staff’s demand once again.
Does the entire chain of events from that day seem normal to you? So it is understandable why Shahzreh would file a case of foul play into her brother’s death with the Gulshan police station. The case was redirected to the Police Bureau of Investigation and the investigating team intended on looking into the case thoroughly.
However, Transcom’s money and clout by way of Prothom Alo and The Daily Star made sure the investigation couldn’t take its due course. Arshad’s body should have been exhumed but the PBI report says Shahzreh has verbally requested them multiple times not to do it — does it make sense to you? The PBI team should have interrogated Arshad’s driver and the live-in cook but they didn’t. Instead, they took the statement of the maid who comes for a few hours during the day and the household staff of his mother and Simeen who have no connection to the event. And even in their statements, there are glaring inconsistencies. What is more baffling is that the PBI filed its final report on the matter without interrogating any of the 11 accused in the FIR.
Shahzreh has rightly objected to the botched PBI report on her brother’s death and wants the investigation to be done afresh and following the due processes. Isn’t this fair and reasonable? But I’m going to bet my house that Shahzreh would run into a brick wall — even in Bangladesh 2.0. Do you know why? It's because an influential figure within the government who is closely associated with the Prothom Alo and the outsize influence that Mr Matiur Rahman and Mr Mahfuz Anam still enjoy in the society. Where the two editors’ influence falls short, there is always the vast wealth of Transcom, all in Simeen and her mother’s control, to open and close doors for them — at will. The world is Simeen’s oyster. This is a David vs Goliath situation and in the Bangladesh that we dream of, we would like the David, which is Mrs Shahzreh Huq here, to prevail and get her dues, not an inch more or less.
#JusticeForArshad
I’m adding three bonus trivia for you guys
- Four days after Arshad’s death, his mother and Simeen started board meetings. His mother gave 100 of her own shares to make Transcom Group CFO & company secretary Mr Kamrul Hassan so that he could take Arshad's board seat. He is one of the key accused in the FIR.
- Arshad’s rented flat is still being maintained and his cook and driver have become full-time Transcom staff and they use the flat.
- Simeen hosted a big fat wedding for her son, Zaraif Ayaat Hossain, less than 40 days after her brother’s passing. Even for the sake of appearances, she couldn’t wait out the 40-day grieving period for her brother. Just shows how affected she was by Arshad’s death and yet she was the one dictating proceedings on the day of her brother’s death.
Bd-pratidin English/ Jisan
