<i>Caught at last</i>

After remaining absent for more than seven years in a graft case, Abdur Rahman, who managed a man to appear before court and undergo punishment in jail on his behalf, has been arrested at last.
A team of detective branch (DB) police led by Mostafizar Rahman, officer-in-charge of the DB in Rangpur, arrested him from Rangpur Judge Court premises yesterday.
Police said Rahman, a former union parishad chairman of Goyabari in Nilphamari district, was arrested when he came to surrender to the court at around 1:30pm.
Now an assistant tax commissioner, Rahman on November 30, 2004 was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and fined Tk 6,35,000 and in default six more months in jail for misappropriating 115 tonnes wheat in 1989.
He was then chairman of a river re-excavation and fish farming project under the government's Food For Work programme.
Abdus Shobhan, an officer of the now-defunct Anti-Corruption Bureau, filed the case with Dimla Police Station in Nilphamari on October 18, 1993.
A special judge court in Rangpur on October 17 last year issued an arrest warrant against Rahman as he had been absconding since the day the verdict was announced.
On January 23 this year, one Abdur Rouf, identifying himself as the former Goyabari chairman, appeared before the court and appealed for an interim bail. The court rejected the appeal and sent him to Rangpur Central jail.
The DB police enquired the matter and found that Rouf was reportedly engaged to submit to the court for Tk 50,000.
DB's Mostafizar said a case was lodged against Rahman for cheating as he engaged Rouf to undergo punishment in his behalf.
Earlier on 2003, Rahman joined the income tax department in Sylhet by showing a false certificate of being an employee of the Mujibnagar Government.