Guwahati, June 26: Teams of the directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption, Assam, laid traps in government offices at Kokrajhar and Morigaon districts on Monday and arrested a junior engineer and a lat mandal in bribery cases.
The directorate had received a complaint that Sabibar Rahman, junior engineer at the Office of the Block Development Officer, Debitola Development Block, Kazigaon in Kokrajhar district, had demanded Rs 15,000 as bribe from the complainant for releasing his bills.
Unwilling to pay the bribe, the complainant approached the directorate for taking necessary legal action against the public servant.
Accordingly, a trap was laid and Rahman was caught red handed immediately after he accepted Rs 5,000 as part of demanded bribe from the complainant. The bribe money has been recovered from his possession and has been seized accordingly in the presence of independent witnesses.
After finding sufficient evidence against the accused public servant, the vigilance team arrested the junior engineer.
In this connection, a case under Section 7(a) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018) has been registered at the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) police station against Rahman.
Earlier in the day, Nabajyoti Nath, a lat mandal at the Office of the Circle Officer, Morigaon revenue circle was caught red-handed by a vigilance team immediately after he accepted Rs 15,000 as part of demanded bribe from the complainant. The bribe money was recovered from his possession and has been seized accordingly in presence of independent witnesses.
Nath had demanded Rs 30,000 as bribe from the complainant for processing namjari work of the complainant. Later, he had reduced the amount of bribe to Rs 25,000.
Unwilling to pay the bribe, the complainant had approached the directorate for taking necessary legal action against the public servant following which a trap was laid to catch him red handed.
Gathering sufficient evidence against the accused public servant, he has been arrested by the vigilance team.
In this connection, a case under Section 7(a) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018) has been registered at ACB Police Station and necessary legal follow up action is underway.
Notably, the state vigilance directorate has arrested 51 persons in trap cases so far this year.