Trucks carrying essentials at mercy of extortionists, Momen tells parliament

Former foreign minister AK Abdul Momen today in parliament said some criminals in his constituency are regularly extorting money from essentials laden trucks.

He urged the government to stop this extortion and confiscate the money collected.

The Awami League MP said this while speaking on his call attention notice of important public issues in the House.

According to Section-71 of rules of procedure of parliament, respective MPs are given two-minutes time to discuss on the call attention notice.

In his speech, the immediate past foreign minister Momen said, "My constituency is Sylhet-1. The small and medium businessmen of my area have complained to me that some local criminals are forced to pay Tk 5,000 to Tk 10,000 from each truck carrying daily necessities such as vegetables and sugar."

Momen also said, "They hijack the truck if the extortion money is not paid. When I brought the matter to the attention of the local police and administration, the terrorist activity stopped for a couple of days. But, later it started again."

He also said the local traders are very unhappy with the oppression at the hands of these extortionists.

"As a local MP, I am calling upon through you to stop this extortion. At the same time, I urge the government to take special measures to confiscate the money collected by those terrorists through extortion."

Meanwhile, another ruling AL MP Nazrul Islam Babu from Narayanganj-2 called upon the commerce minister to take immediate measures to control the price hike of essentials.

Babu said this while speaking on his call attention notice.

"Inflation and price hike of essentials are our big problem at present. Inflation in the world is on the downward trend. Now the prime minister is giving instructions to the commerce ministry on how to reduce the prices of our daily commodities," he said.