The ‘Japanese family’ Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury Babu left out of his public profile

Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury Babu was a Chattogram industrialist who became an Awami League stalwart.

He was an organiser of the Liberation War; a member of Bangladesh’s Constituent Assembly; a four-time parliamentarian; a businessman who helped establish United Commercial Bank; and the patriarch of a family whose influence eventually stretched from Anwara to the capital.

His family story on the public record was equally settled. He was married to Nur Nahar Zaman, daughter of prominent Chattogram industrialist Sirazul Islam Chowdhury. Published accounts say the couple had three sons and three daughters. 

But a set of Japanese government records, banking documents, photographs and an interview obtained by Daily Waadaa points to another family…one entirely absent from public accounts of Babu’s life.

The documents say that on August 21, 1992, in the United Kingdom, Akhtaruzzaman married a Japanese woman named Minako Kawarazaki.

They had two daughters.

The elder, Niina Kawarazaki, was born in Britain on December 19, 1992, four months after the marriage. The name of their younger daughter was not publicly documented in the records reviewed by Waadaa.

And now, nearly 34 years after the marriage and 14 years after Akhtaruzzaman’s death, Niina has appeared in documents submitted to the very bank her father helped establish and had later forcefully taken over in Bangladesh.

She wants a fixed deposit encashed. The money, however, is only one part of the story.

For the first time, Minako has also spoken about marriage.

In a conversation with Waadaa over whatsapp, she described a life with Akhtaruzzaman that existed almost entirely outside the world he inhabited in Bangladesh…so separate, she said, that she eventually learned of his death from the news.

A marriage recorded in Japan

The first document reviewed by Waadaa is a marriage certificate issued in Dhaka by the Embassy of Japan on March 15, 2007.

It identifies the husband as “Chowdhury Akhtaruzzaman,” a Bangladeshi born on May 3, 1945. The wife is identified as Minako Kawarazaki, born on March 22, 1960 and domiciled in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

The date of marriage is recorded as August 21, 1992. The place: United Kingdom.

The certificate states that it was based on a certified copy of an official family register issued by the mayor of Chigasaki City in Kanagawa Prefecture two days earlier.

Another certificate, apparently issued by the Japanese Embassy in Dhaka on September 14 this year and based on a fresh copy of the Chigasaki family register, repeats the essential details: Minako married Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi citizen, in Britain on August 21, 1992. 

Waadaa has reviewed images of the documents and verified those with Japanese authorities.

There is a discrepancy though. The Japanese records give Akhtaruzzaman’s date of birth as May 3, 1945. Published Bangladeshi biographies generally give it as May 1.

But the marriage itself presents the far more consequential departure from his established biography.

Another Japanese government document fills in part of what happened next.

A birth certificate issued by the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong on April 8 this year identifies Kawarazaki Niina, born in the United Kingdom on December 19, 1992.

Under “Father,” it says Akhtaruz Zaman Chowdhury. Under “Mother”: Kawarazaki Minako. Under “Relationship”: 1st Daughter. 

A Japanese-language family-register extract reviewed by Waadaa is consistent with those details, recording Niina’s birth in London and Minako as her mother. 

Minako told Waadaa that she and Akhtaruzzaman had two daughters. But she didn’t want to disclose any details about them.

One photograph obtained by Waadaa shows Akhtaruzzaman standing with Minako and two young girls outside The Peninsula hotel. Waadaa independently verified the woman in the photograph as Minako. 

A letter and a bank cheque 

The story might have remained a little-known part of a politician’s private life but for a letter dated September 23, 2026.

It is addressed to the branch manager of United Commercial Bank’s Corporate Branch in Gulshan and signed in the name of Niina Kawarazaki (Zaman Chowdhury). 

Niina writes: “I am maintaining a fixed deposit with my late father, Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury... with your branch since 2012, with auto-renewal.”

She asks UCB to encash it.

Because she says she is outside Bangladesh, Niina authorises her mother, Minako Kawarazaki (Zaman Chowdhury), to receive the proceeds on her behalf. A UCB receipt stamp on the letter is dated September 23. 

Another document provides an apparent paper trail.

It is a UCB fixed-deposit receipt dated February 27, 2012 — about eight months before Akhtaruzzaman died. The depositor field bears two names:

“AKHTARUZZAMAN CHOWDHURY & NIINA KAWARAZAKI (ZAMAN CHOWDHURY)”

The amount was 1 crore taka. The receipt records a three-month fixed deposit at an annual interest rate of 13.5%.

The account number on the 2012 receipt corresponds to the account cited in Niina’s 2026 request, apart from formatting and what appears to be an additional digit in the later document.

Waadaa could not independently establish the deposit’s present balance, whether it was continuously renewed, whether money was withdrawn in the intervening years or what action UCB has taken on Niina’s September request. 

In 1992, Akhtaruzzaman was a very well-known person. He also already had the family known publicly in Bangladesh.

But Minako says she herself did not initially know the full picture then. Speaking to Waadaa, she confirmed the marriage but declined to explain how she met Akhtaruzzaman or the circumstances in which they married.

“That is privacy,” she said. “I cannot open [it] to you,” she said over whatsapp from Japan.

She said she eventually learned that her husband had another family in Bangladesh. But the two households never merged.

“We have never been integrated with their life,” Minako said. “We have a separate life with my husband.” 

The UCB controversy 

Akhtaruzzaman’s was one of its founders. The bank became central to both his business career and some of its most serious controversies.

Bangladesh Bank removed him from UCB’s board in 1991 because of his failure to repay 250 crore taka in loans taken for his company.

Then came a bitter struggle over the bank.

UCB director Humayun Zahir was shot dead at his Dhanmondi residence in April 1993. Akhtaruzzaman was among seven people accused in the murder case and was later charge-sheeted.

In 1999 members of Akhtaruzzaman’s family and armed men stormed a UCB board meeting, where directors were assaulted and forced to sign resignation papers. Bangladesh Bank subsequently dissolved the board. Akhtaruzzaman eventually returned to UCB’s board in 2010. 

He died in Singapore on November 4, 2012. The FDR bearing Niina’s name dates from February of that year.

Akhtaruzzaman’s political inheritance passed most visibly to Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed, who represented the family’s Chattogram constituency and eventually served as land minister under Sheikh Hasina.

His financial affairs have since become the subject of extensive investigations.

In 2024, Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit reported that Saifuzzaman had spent more than $500 million on overseas real estate, including 360 properties in Britain, and had not declared the overseas assets on his Bangladesh tax returns.

Saifuzzaman said his properties were funded from legitimate overseas businesses and described investigations against him as politically motivated. 

Britain’s National Crime Agency subsequently secured freezing orders against a number of his UK properties as part of an ongoing civil investigation.

In February this year, a Dhaka court ordered Bangladeshi authorities to pursue the seizure of 518 flats in the United Kingdom, valued in court documents at £271.85 million, as part of an ACC investigation into alleged money laundering.

The allegations have not been judicially determined.

‘I’ve never seen them’

Minako said she never met Akhtaruzzaman’s Bangladesh family.

“I know that there is a different family there. I’ve never seen [them], actually,” she said. “We have no relation with them.” 

When asked she said neither she nor her daughters had contact with any members from Akhteruzzaman’s family in Bangladesh. Some reliable sources told Waadaa that the Japanese family in fact had gotten some threat from Saifuzzaman.

But asked specifically whether they had ever been threatened by him, she rejected the suggestion.

“No, no, we do not contact him,” she said. “We don’t have any threat from them because we live a very separate life.” 

What she knows about Akhtaruzzaman’s Bangladesh family today, she said, largely comes from the internet.

“I don’t know anything about them, and then just my source is from the internet.” Even Akhtaruzzaman’s death apparently did not bring the two families together. Minako said she learned that her husband had died from news reports, rather than from his family in Bangladesh. 

That distance appears to have extended to money.

When Waadaa asked whether her two daughters had received what could be regarded as their share of their father’s estate, Minako answered: “No, no, we didn’t.” She did not elaborate.

Nor would she discuss the recent approach to UCB. Asked about one of her daughters going to the bank and the purpose of the visit, Minako declined to comment. 

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