The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Nawabganj

Business-tycoon Noor Ali, who had implicated former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a Tk 5-crore extortion case amid the recent purge, yesterday publicly begged pardon for his 'unwilling' act.

"If you felt hurt for my deed, I'm very sorry for that and I beg your mercy," he told an election meeting at the local pilot high school ground where Hasina was the chief speaker.

He came out as the third business bigwig to eat humble pie after suing the ex-PM and Awami League chief after the military-backed 1/11 changeover.

In the meantime, Azam J Chowdhury and Tajul Islam Farooq have retracted through applying for withdrawal of their extortion cases against her following the change of wind.

Introducing grand alliance candidate advocate Abdul Mannan Khan, who is contesting December 29 parliament elections from Dhaka-1 constituency, as his elder brother, Noor Ali made a commitment to get him elected.

He said in the past, Awami League government had done a lot for the development of the Nawabganj-Dohar constituency although no candidates with Awami League ticket were elected from the area.

On November 5, Sheikh Hasina was cleared of an extortion charge brought in the case of Noor Ali as police in final report submitted to the CMM court here found mistake of facts in the case after thorough investigation.

The case was filed with the Tejgaon police station on June 13 last year when a crackdown on the political arena was on steam after the January 11, 2007 changeover following a crisis over election issues that threw Hasina and many other top politicians behind bars.

Noor Ali, managing director of Unique Group of Companies, in his case had also accused Hasina's cousin Sheikh Helal and his wife Rupa Chowdhury of taking kickbacks from a power project.