Staff Reporter :
The investigators of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) are allegedly harassing people before booking them in graft cases abusing a particular provision of the anti-corruption law, sources said.
They said the prosecutors of the anti-graft body are doing excesses in exercise of the power provided to them in sub-section (3) under Section 20 of the Anti-Corruption Act 2004.
The particular section of the ACC Act has provided them the power to arrest graft suspects, search their residences, business places and seize valuables alleged to have amassed illegally by them.
They also observed that the ongoing aggressive anti-graft drive by the ACC causing panic and dissatisfaction among the people.
Some victims also alleged that the ACC investigators are sometimes indulging in unlawful act to realize pecuniary benefits from the target group.
“People are being harassed by the ACC men during their anti-graft drives. This was reported to us from different quarters,” Dr Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of Transparency
International Bangladesh (TIB) told The New Nation yesterday.
He added: We have information that they (ACC men) are
doing unfair behavior abusing the ACC Act. This is unfortunate and unwanted. Besides, some officials of the ACC are also being involved in corruption.
They cannot do this because such excesses, abuse of power and corruption are creating mistrust among the people on the ACC ruining the main objective of the Commission, he said.
“Weak internal control is leading to such incidents,” observed Dr Iftekharuzzaman adding, “ACC must strengthen its internal control and monitoring to stop such illegal activities by its officials”.
He further said TIB also referred some cases to the Commission for taking corrective measures of those incidents. “They claimed they have taken punitive measures against some abusive officers, but what kinds of measures they have taken we do not know,” he added.
The ACC should take stringent measures against the corrupt ACC officials for building trust and upheld its image. Otherwise, their anti-corruption drive will be nothing but a cosmetic change keeping a ‘virus in the antidote’.
There is a culture that the power given to the concerned departments are exercised wrongly and sometimes the innocent people also fell victim to this illegal practice.
“We are yet to come out from the culture due mainly to politicization and lack of efficient and honest officers in the government institutes,” he said.
He also suggested that the ACC investigators should work professionally without abusive mentality. They should act keeping them free from all sorts of political loyalty and influence to make their anti-graft drive a success.
“We would examine whether our officials abused their power in conducting a broad investigation against corrupt people,” said M Bodiuzzaman, Chairman of ACC.
He said the ACC will investigate allegations of improper conduct by the anti-corruption men if one can provide specific information.
