RHD sues journalist for corruption probe

A Roads and Highways Department (RHD) officer has sued the Patuakhali correspondent of bdnews24.com as he was investigating suspected corruption in the department.

Patuakhali RHD Sub Assistant Engineer Md Hasan Al-Mamun filed the case with Patuakhali Sadar Police Station on April 25 against Sanjoy Kumar Das.

Das was collecting information on the auction of various obsolete equipments and materials including Bailey bridge in Patuakhali.

An investigation by bdnews24.com did not find address of three firms which won the auction. They are Nazma Enterprise, Gazi Trading Corporation and Karnaphuli Engineering.

All the firms mentioned 34 Sheikhpara in Khulna city as their office address but Khunla City Corporation confirmed that there was no existence of such firms there.

The junior engineer said the case statement that two journalists including Das and 5-6 unidentified people went to his government quarter on April 24 at around 9:30 and demanded Tk 0.5 million in ransom.

They also abused and threatened his brother, he claimed.

Al-Mamun, however, said he was not at the quarter at that time.

He claimed that half an hour later the accused went to Patuakhali toll plaza where they abused threatened duty inspectors Abdur Rahman and Abul Bashar and took away Tk 3,000 from them.

When asked, complaint Al-Mamun told bdnews24.com: “They (the accused) were demanding ransom from me on different purposes. They told me, ‘you’ve got a huge sum of money here. Give us this amount of money.’”

He claimed to have told the journalists: “I just joined here. I will get money from where.”

When asked about the dubious firms, he said: “The executive director is responsible for examining the papers. It’s his responsibility to hand over the materials as per the work order.”

He said there was a separate committee to deal with the matter and its members could answer the question well.

Asked why the journalists demanded ransom from him, nor from the executive engineer, Al-Mamun said: “The accused can explain it well.”

Executive Engineer Zahirul Islam said that he heard the journalists abused Al-Mamun at his house.

Asked if the three firms wining the auction have any valid documents, he said: “Why trade licences will be needed for taking part in auction.”

He avoided direct answer when asked about the RHD rules on the matter, but said ‘examining trade licences’ was not necessary in small-scale spot auction.

Islam even said he thought trade licences were not necessary for participating in medium and large traders.

He did not answer to a question on when the auction tenders were invited.

He claimed that the evaluation of the auction was completed before he took over as the RHD executive engineer.

Journalist Sanjoy also went to Patuakhali RHD Superintendent Engineer Rabul Islam on April 24 for information. bdnews24.com has obtained the audio recording of the conversation of the journalist and superintendent engineer.

In the conversation, he told Sanjoy: “What will you do with this? You don’t need it, leave it… I can understand you are a bit angry. You shouldn’t be so angry.”

Referring to Communications Minister Obaidul Quader, the engineer said: “He (minister) becomes happy insulting you.”

Asked about dubious firms’ wining the auction, he claimed that ground works on the auction were completed before the joined the Patuakhali RHD.

He said executive engineers were responsible to examine qualification of participants in auctions.

Rabul admitted that there was no provision in the law to award any work to any illegitimate firms.

Asked if he initiated a probe into the auction, he said: “We’ll do it if anyone wants.”