Dhaka: The Anti -Corruption Commission (ACC) on Tuesday interrogated BNP executive committee member Tabith Awal over the “suspicious transactions” in his bank accounts.

Tabith, son of Abdul Awal Mintoo, appeared at ACC’s Segunbagicha headquarters around 10 am, ACC spokesperson Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya said.

He said ACC deputy director Shamsul Alam quizzed the young BNP leader who is the party’s mayoral candidate in Dhaka North City Corporation by-polls stayed by the High Court for nearly four hours till 1:40 pm.

Declining to make any comment on the allegations, Tabith described the ACC move as a ploy to divert people’s attention from the case of Khaleda Zia to another direction.

Tabith also ran for the mayor position of DNCC in the last city corporation elections.

Earlier, the ACC launched an investigation into allegations of money laundering, amassing illegal wealth and suspicious bank transactions against eight BNP leaders.

The BNP leaders against whom the ACC launched the investigation are standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Nazrul Islam Khan, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and Mirza Abbas, two vice chairmen Abdul Awal Mintoo and M Morshed Khan, and joint secretary general and BNP’s Dhaka city’s south unit president Habibun-Nabi Khan Sohel.

Alongside, it sent letters to banks concerned seeking information about the respective persons and would also ask the BNP leaders to submit their wealth statements.

ACC officials said the organisation launched the investigation after some media outlets, quoting intelligence sources, published news reports that “suspicious transactions” of as much as Tk 1.25 billion were made in a 30 days’ time in the bank accounts of these BNP leaders.

They said most of those whose bank account records show “unusual money withdrawal” are businessmen and the volume of transactions is not unusual either, but the withdrawal was made in cash which, ACC officials said, has created suspicions.

ACC officials said allegations have it that Abdul Awal Mintoo withdrew some Tk 320 million on February 11, 15 and 22 and his son Tabith Awal withdrew some Tk 200 million in the same month.