Staff Reporter :
A sensation has been created centring seizer of 168.5 tonnes of rice by the law enforcers in the port city Chittagong.
Many believed the food grains were stolen from the government warehouse. But some officials claimed that as many government silos were empty, black marketeers, in connivance with corrupt officials, kept their rice stock in the warehouse.
Meanwhile, the elite force Rapid Action Battalion launched a massive hunt to net the government warehouse’s assistant manager Fakhrul Alam involved in smuggling out 168.5 tonnes of rice in the port city Chittagong.
Earlier, the Rapid Action Battalion seized around 168.5 tonnes of rice that were smuggled out of a government warehouse in Chittagong.
Five men, including Acting Manager Pranayan Chakma of the food warehouse at the port city’s Halishahar area, were arrested during the raids and sent to jail by the court, Ashekur Rahman, Lieutenant Commander of RAB-7 said on Thursday. Replying to a query he said they are raiding different places of the port city to nab Fakhrul Alam, rice traders and truckers
Besides, Ashekur Rahman said they seized another truck loaded with 13.5 tonnes of rice in 270 sacks from the city on Wednesday. The vehicle was left abandoned in Akbar Shah area.
All the sacks bore the seal of the Directorate General of Food.
“The RAB filed a case with Halishahar Police Station on Wednesday under the Special Powers Act, 1974, accusing eight people of rice theft,” he said..
The accused are CSD Manager Pranayan, Assistant Manager Fakhrul Alam, rice traders Sahabuddin Sawdagor, Nuru Sawdagor and four truck drivers-Shamsul Huda, Md Mizan, Shafi Alam and Md Osman.
According to another RAB official, they had information that 12 rice-laden trucks went out of the CSD on Monday evening, but they could seize only seven.
He said the CSD manager claimed during primary interrogation that he was not aware of the incident. Deputy Manager Fakhrul dealt with the matter, Miftah quoted the accused as saying.
An official of Directorate said the 126 depots had a total capacity of 1.16 lakh tonnes, but most part of the silos was empty.
“Taking chance, a group of black marketers might have stocked their food grain in the government silos in association with the some depot officials,” preferring not to be named he said.
According to the RAB officials, two separate raids were conducted in the early hours on Tuesday and later in the afternoon in the Halishahar and City Gate areas,
“At first, we stopped four trucks at Naya Bazar Biswa Road’s Hakkani Petrol Pump at Halishahar and found 1,152 sacks of rice taken from the government warehouse,” the official said.
Rab-7 officials also said a total of 3,096 sacks of rice were seized from the seven trucks on Monday evening and Tuesday from Halisahar and City Gate areas.
After seeing the food directorate’s name printed on the sacks, RAB arrested warehouse manager Chakma and interrogated him.
The RAB official said Chakma then told them about a private warehouse at City Gate’s Kabir Colony where another raid seized 2,000 more sacks of rice.
Three more trucks were impounded from there when sacks of rice were being unloaded from them, he said. “We seized 846 sacks from the trucks and 1,098 sacks smuggled earlier from inside the depot.”
In total, 3,096 sacks were carrying 155 tonnes of rice, added the RAB official.
He also said that the food directorate confirmed them that those sacks were indeed smuggled from the government warehouse.
Meanwhile, a Chittagong court on Wednesday sent the manager of the Halisahar central storage depot (CSD), from where the rice was allegedly stolen, and four truckers to jail in connection with the incident.
Officials of the directorate on Wednesday inspected all 126 government food depots in Chittagong and found their rice stock intact.
Mahbubur Rahman, regional food comptroller of the directorate, said they found 2,104 tonnes of rice and 2,799 tonnes of wheat in the warehouses which matched their ledger.
