Anamul Haque, alias Arman, has been the closest cohort of the casino kingpin Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat. Arman, who is also vice-president of the Dhaka South City Jubo League, was arrested, along with Samrat, from the Cumilla border. He is now in police custody. According to the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Arman was with Samrat on September 28. They were planning to flee the country through the Cumilla border. Samrat had been using Arman’s Harrier car for one year, said RAB intelligence sources. Arman came to Dhaka from his hometown Noakhali in the early ‘90s. He was a trader of electronic goods in the Baitul Mukarram area in his early days in Dhaka. He used to bring a variety of goods from Pakistan and Singapore and sold them in the Baitul Mokarram Mosque market.

Arman became close to Iqbal Hossain, who is a relative of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia. Without having any specific political position, he got involved in the gambling racket of the Motijheel Club Para during the BNP regime. At that time, he started controlling the gambling room of some clubs in Fakirapool in the capital.

When the BNP was ousted from power, Arman started appearing in Jubo League programmes and became close to the Samrat. He eventually became the vice-president of the Dhaka South Jubo League when Samrat became the president of that organisation.

Right from 2013, Arman started to look after Samrat’s casino empire and gambling business. He mainly controlled the Mohammedan Sporting Club and Dilkusha Sporting Club in the capital. There are also allegations that he amassed massive amounts of wealth through extortion and tender manipulations.