S Alam’s takeover of Islami Bank Bangladesh PLC is a well-known tale. Bank robbery is a very old profession and still occurs all over the world. While there have been countless incidents of bank robbery, actual seizing of bank ownership is quite rare. Earlier, in 1999, Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury Babu had attempted to take control of United Commercial Bank PLC at gunpoint. Perhaps S Alam learned from the failure of his uncle. And so, by using state intelligence agencies, he was able to very easily take control of six banks one after another.

There have been instances in other countries where ownership was seized by buying shares from the market or where funds were embezzled from one’s own bank. Now let's take a lot at what those countries did, and what we are doing.