Bangladesh News

Intelligence officials of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) yesterday picked up a joint commissioner of taxation and three others from the tax official’s Bijoynagar office in the capital on charges of bribery.
Away in Sylhet, the joint forces arrested a Chief Engineer of Sylhet City Corporation (SCC) Saiful Islam from his office on corruption charges. Suspended by Mayor Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran on graft allegations, slam admitted to have amassed ill-gotten wealth amounting Tk 20 crore, sources said.

Islam also admitted that he has a bank balance of over Tk one crore with Standard Chartered Bank, 10 plots at Bashundhara, flats at Gulshan and Uttara, a petrol pump and a CNG filling station at Sirajganj, sources added.

At Bijoynagr, Rab members also confiscated Tk 25,000 from the desk drawer of the tax official and from the pocket of one of the other detainees.

The detainees are Joint Commissioner of Taxation (Appellate Division) of Range 4 Harunur Rashid Bhuiyan, Chartered Accountant of Farias Constructions Nitai Chand Roy, Executive Officer of Dutch Bangla Bank Limited Hasanuzzaman, and Advocate Mafizul Islam.

Harun told reporters that he borrowed the money from Nitai Chand and Mafizul Islam.

But contradicting Harun’s claim Nitai and Mahfizul alleged that they actually bribed him Tk 20,000 and Tk 5,000 respectively so that he decreases the actual amount of tax to be paid by Farias Constructions.

The detained Dutch Bangla Bank official said Harun called him to his office to carry the money to the bank for deposit.

“Harun asked me to bribe him Tk 20,000 saying that he needs the money to move to the place where he had been transferred recently,” a Rab official quoted Nitai as saying.

Nitai also alleged that Harun took Tk 40,000 from him on March 1 saying that he would use the money to build a mosque in his home village.

Advocate Mafizul said Harun asked for money from him to meet the cost of moving.

Captain Syed Mohammad As-sazid and Captain Yasir Sarwat led the operation. Captain As-sazid said they were earlier informed through a source that Harun does not release any file without a bribe.

Following the information, they set up a net of surveillance to catch Harun red-handed and as part of that plan some plainclothesmen took position just outside his office around 2:00pm yesterday.

The elite force members stopped Nitai as soon as he came out of Harun’s office and started questioning him. As he admitted to the Rab members of having bribed Harun, the elite force entered Harun’s room with Nitai.

Then they searched the office room thoroughly and retrieved Tk 20,000 from Harun’s desk drawer and Tk 5,000 from the pocket of Dutch Bangla Bank official Hasanuzzaman.

Besides, the Rab members seized six income tax files, two mobile phone sets, and Harun’s money deposit book of AB Bank Ltd.

Rab sources said the deposit book shows that Harun deposited Tk 75,000 on May 17, 2006, Tk 90,000 on July 13, 2006, Tk 26,000 on May 9, 2006 and Tk 13,000 on March 10, 2006.

The Rab officials suspect that Harun has accounts in multiple banks.

At the time of filing this report last night Rab was searching through Harun’s residence for further evidence of his bribe taking.