Police yesterday seized 627 sacks of rice, meant for government's different subsidy programmes, from a private warehouse in Pabna.
The rice was supposed to be carried to local supply depot (LSD) at Bera upazila in the district from the central supply depot (CSD) in Khulna, said police.
Acting on a tip off, Bera police raided the local warehouse owned by Gautam Datta in the municipality area at 11:00am and held a truck with 334 sacks of rice. They also picked up its driver Abdus Salam, and his helper Shahin Hossain for quizzing.
During the questioning, Salam told policemen that somebody, the person he knows by face, asked him to carry the rice to that particular storehouse instead of Bera LSD, Officer-in-Charge (OC) Sheikh Zillur Rahman of Bera Police Station told The Daily Star.
Police later searched the warehouse and recovered more 293 rice sacks.
The driver had documents for carrying the rice from Khulna to Bera, said Superintendent of Police (SP) Jahangir Hossain Matubbar of Pabna.
“Some government officials of the food department might be involved with the incident,” he told the journalists.
District Controller of Food (DC-Food) Abdur Rakib of Pabna said he would make a departmental inquiry into the matter. “The carrying-contractors are responsible for delivering the rice to the local depot,” said Rakib.
The rice was being carried to Pabna for Open Market Sale (OMS), Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) and Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) programmes, he added.