The New Nation - Internet Edition

Chitagong Correspondent

A joint squad of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Rapid Action Batalion (RAB) on Wednesday nabbed the Chief Engineer of Chitagong Water and Sewerage Authority (CWASA) and two of his subordinates on graft charges.

The ACC sources confirmed the arrest of Chief Engineer Safiqul Islam, Superintendent Engineer Safiullah and Assistant Engineer Abdul Quddus. They had been at the court custody till the time of dispatching this report

Chitagong WASA came under intensive watch and monitoring of the joint forces after Major Zulfikar Ali Majumder took over the divisional unit of the ACC in Chitagong. In another such move the ACC arrested a Deputy Director of the Fisheries and Livestock directorate on charge of bribery.

Head of the ACC's divisional wing here in the port city Major Julfikar Ali Majumdar and second-in-command at the RAB-7 headquarters at Patenga Major Anis supervised the drive.

The detainees were later produced before the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Amitav Sarkar. The court denied bail for the detainees and ordered to put them into jail custody. According to the eye accounts, the RAB and the ACC men first cordoned the WASA building before entering into the offices of their hunts at about 10:40 a.m. The squad returned to their vehicles picking up three big shots of the WASA.

The ACC on May 24, 2004 recorded a case with Kotwali police station accusing five people including the three of defalcating public funds and willful manipulations.

The other co-accused were identified as Assistant Engineer (Retd) of the WASA Abu Taher and a Contractor AN Farouque Alam.

The two co-accused went into hiding. Kotwali police quoting the First Information Report (FIR) said that the accused in had deceived the WASA and its consumers by approving a partially done subsoil water supply line. The contractor of the subsoil pipe-commissioning project in fact built only 986 meters pipeline instead of 3000 meters.

The ACC in its initial investigation found that the WASA engineers had misappropriated Taka 1.7 million from this project and subsequently held them libel for this.