A Sylhet court has issued arrest warrants against Bashundhara Group Chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, Managing Director Sayem Sobhan Anvir, and four others in connection with a cheque fraud case.

The order was passed on Thursday by Judge Mohammad Harun-or-Rashid of the Sylhet Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court following a hearing on an appeal, according to court officials.

The case was filed by Ahmed Noor, former Sylhet bureau chief of Kaler Kantho—a newspaper under Bashundhara’s East West Media Group—and currently editor of the local daily Sylhet Mirror.

Plaintiff’s lawyer Emad Ullah Shahidul Islam confirmed the development, stating that the arrest warrants were issued after the accused failed to respond to prior summons issued by the court.

The others named in the case include Kaler Kantho publisher Moynal Hossain Chowdhury, current editor Hasan Hafiz, former editor and cheque signatory Shahed Muhammad Ali, and former Bangladesh Pratidin editor Naem Nizam. The Kaler Kantho newspaper has also been named as an institutional defendant.

Court documents reveal that the case was initially filed on December 5, 2023. At the time, the court had directed all six individual accused to appear before it.

According to the case statement, Noor worked as Sylhet bureau chief of Kaler Kantho from its launch until September 2021. He alleged that his post-resignation dues under the Wage Board were delayed. While partial payment was made through 10 post-dated cheques, eight of them—amounting to Tk 601,824—were dishonoured.

Despite serving a legal notice and receiving verbal assurances from the defendants’ counsel, the outstanding payments remained unsettled, prompting Noor to file two cases over the dishonoured cheques. The arrest warrants issued on Thursday pertain to the first of those cases.