Staff Reporter :The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Sunday took statement of Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan and former Housing and Public Works Minister Mirza Abbas in connection with a case filed against former State Minister for Housing and Public Works Alamgir Kabir for irregularities in allocation of land to journalists at lower price.The case was filed by the Commission with Shahbagh Police Station on March 3 this year for allocating seven acres of land at Mirpur in the city to Dhaka Journalists Cooperative Society Ltd in a nominal price during the BNP-led four-party alliance government tenure. Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan went to the ACC Secretariat in Dhaka in the morning to give his statement in connection with the case before its Deputy Director Jatan Kumar Roy. The statement of Shajahan Khan was recorded between 11:00am and 12:00 noon. Later, BNP leader Mirza Abbas entered the ACC Secretariat to appear before the anti-graft watchdog officials at 2:40pm over the same allegation.On September 22, separate letters were sent to the two influential politicians requesting them to give their statements at the ACC headquarters on Sunday.The case was originally filed against former State Minister Alamgir Kabir.The case states that the land was projected in the name of Jhilmil Multi-purpose Cooperative Society Ltd. Then current Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan was the president of the Jhilmil, for which his evidence was recorded. The seven acres of land in Mirpur was allotted to the Dhaka Journalists Cooperatives Society Ltd between 2001 and 2006 when Abbas was the minister of the ministry and Alamgir was his deputy.ACC on March 6 filed the case accusing former State Minister Alamgir along with former deputy director Azharul Haque and office assistant Matiar Rahman and cashier Mansur Alam of the National Housing Authority.According to the case, Alamgir in a letter in 2002 requested the then prime minister to allocate a land to journalists, writers, artistes and cultural activists though they did not make any written requests for providing them plots. In the meantime, Alamgir directed his ministry’s secretary to allocate the land from a previously designed housing land.The housing officials allocated the seven acres of land to the journalists’ co-operatives at Tk 3.39 crore though the market value of the land was Tk 19 crore, it said.
