Railway Job Scam: Ex-GM Mridha, 2 others get 4-year jail
A Chittagong court yesterday handed down jail sentences of four years to three suspended railway (east zone) officials, including General Manager Yusuf Ali Mridha, and fined them Tk 10,000 each in two cases over recruitment irregularities.
Chittagong Divisional Special Judge Mir Ruhul Amin delivered the verdict in the cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission over four and a half years ago.
The two other convicts are Senior Welfare Officer Golam Kibria and Additional Chief Mechanical Engineer Hafizur Rahman.
The convicts would have to spend three more years in jail in default of the fine, said Public Prosecutor Mejhbah Uddin Chowdhury.
The court, however, acquitted five staff -- fuel checkers Abul Kashem and Anisur Rahman and assistant chemists Sultana Begum, Jahirul Islam and Gonesh Chandra Shil -- as the charges brought against them were not proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Of the eight accused, Mridha, Kibria and Hafizur were behind bars and the fuel checkers on bail. The five were present at the court during the delivery of the verdict.
However, the three assistant chemists have been on the run since the filing of the cases.
ACC Assistant Director Rashedur Reza had filed the cases with Kotwali Police Station on September 13, 2012, accusing the three Bangladesh Railway officials.
Following investigation, the graft watchdog also named five staff, recruited for the posts of assistant chemist and fuel checker, in the charge sheets submitted to the court in August 2013.
According to the charge sheets, the accused railway officials in connivance with each other appointed the unsuccessful candidates to the five posts between August 2010 and July 2012 without recruiting the successful jobseekers. The accused with a dishonest motive changed the results of recruitment tests by modifying the candidates' answer scripts and the tabulation sheets of the exams, it added.
On April 9, 2012, Mridha along with three others was arrested in the capital's Pilkhana by Border Guard Bangladesh while the four were reportedly on their way to then railway minister Suranjit Sengupta's Dhanmondi residence with Tk 70 lakh. The railway GM was suspended following the recovery.
PROSECUTION, DEFENSE UNHAPPY
Prosecution and defense lawyers yesterday expressed disappointment at the verdict.
ACC PP Mahmudul Haque Mahmud said they expected that the maximum punishment of seven-year jail would be handed to the convicts under Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.
“We are aggrieved that the court acquitted the charge-sheeted accused [five staff] and awarded only two year's imprisonment to the convicts in each of the two cases,” he added.
The lawyer said the ACC would file an appeal with the High Court against the verdict.
Defense lawyer advocate Swabhu Prasad Biswas said although the newly recruited stuff were acquitted, the three officials were convicted.
He said his clients would challenge the verdict in the HC and hoped that they would get justice in the higher court.
Railway GM Mridha faces eleven more cases with different Chittagong courts. Four of them are under trial and charge sheets have been submitted in the rest of the cases.
A Dhaka court in August last year sentenced the official to five year's imprisonment and fined him Tk 15 lakh for earning wealth illegally and concealing information in his wealth statements submitted to the ACC.
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