Allegations pile up against founder of charity

Charity founder Milton Samadder, who has millions of followers on social media, has been accused in three new cases of human trafficking, battery, and fraudulence.

A Dhaka court yesterday placed Milton, founder of Child and Old Age Care, on a three-day remand in a fraud case filed by the Detective Branch of police.

“The allegations against Milton are appalling. If these are true, he has committed heinous crimes,” DB chief Harun Or Rashid told reporters after Milton was arrested on Wednesday night.

At the capital’s Dakkhin Paikpara, three people who live next to Milton’s homeless shelter, told this correspondent that they frequently heard desperate screams from the shelter.

Momtaj Begum, a resident of the area, said she talked to Milton after noticing employees of the shelter hit homeless people with canes. But nothing changed.

A local named Bablu Hawlader said he took a 65-year-old homeless woman to the shelter on January 9, 2022.

“When I went to visit her after a couple of months, some men in the presence of Milton threw the receipt of the woman’s admission to my face and threatened me. I didn’t want any trouble and just left,” Bablu said.

The Daily Star correspondents were not allowed to enter the shelter yesterday. The employees said they would not talk to journalists.

Milton’s Facebook posts that reach thousands often show him engaged in helping elderly people and children on streets. He also seeks contribution for his social work.

In one of the cases, DB Sub-inspector Kamal Pasha accused him and the shelter’s Manager Kishore Bala of unauthorised burial and making fake death certificates.

Detectives seized at least 50 forged death certificates dated from 2019 to 2023.

Milton impersonated a doctor and gave the fake death certificates to the family members, reads the complaint.

In reality, there was no doctor at his shelter home.

Milton and another person named Mohid Khan had seals of physicians.

Officers said across different social media platforms, Milton had a combined follower of almost 1.20 crore and he earned a lot through fraud.

“Investigators learned that Milton and his manager used to physically and mentally torture the elderly and children, sold their organs, and trafficked children,” reads the complaint.

A man named M Rakib filed another case, stating that he took a two-year-old child he found on a footpath in Dhanmondi to the shelter on September 6, 2020, and donated Tk 10,000 to Milton.

But when Rakib went there for a visit later, Milton told him to steer clear and never come back.

“After nine months, I learned that the boy was sold and trafficked,” Rakib claimed in the case statement.

The other complainant, Motiur Rahman Mollick, wrote that he took an elderly blind man to the shelter on March 3, 2021.

After hearing that the elderly man was handed over to his relatives, Mollick and some of his friends went to the shelter to confirm the matter. But Milton and four-five others assaulted them.

On April 15, a man named Shamsuddin Chowdhury filed a case with Savar Police Station accusing Milton and 16 others of battery and assault.

Inspector Abdullah Biswas said the allegations seemed to be true in primary investigation.

In 2020, Milton and his relatives allegedly grabbed the land of Chandrakanta Memorial Church in Wazirpur upazila of Barishal with a fake office order from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, according to court documents.