Former Rooppur engineer, 12 others land in jail over pillow scam

A Dhaka court has sent 13 people, including a former executive engineer of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project, to jail custody in corruption cases over their alleged involvement in unusual expenditure.

The Anti-Corruption Commission arrested them in four cases on Thursday in the capital’s Segunbagicha and they were produced in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrates Court in the evening.

A lawyer for nine of the accused filed bail petitions in three cases, but the judge, Metropolitan Magistrate Nivana Khair Jessi, rejected the petitions and ordered all 13 into jail.

They are accused of criminal breach of trust and embezzlement by purchasing pillow, furniture and other household items at unusually high rates for the power plant staff in Pabna’s Rooppur.

Each pillow was reportedly bought for Tk 5,957, and its carrying cost from the shop to the building was Tk 760.

The purchase price of each refrigerator was shown Tk 94, 250 and Tk 12, 521 was shown as the lifting charge. Similarly, a TV, purchased at Tk 86,970, was lifted spending Tk 7,638, while a bed sheet was shown to have been bought for Tk 5,986 with an additional lifting charge of Tk 931.

The government withdrew Masudul Alam, an executive engineer of the power plant project, and launched investigation into the graft allegations in May.

The investigators have found that 34 engineers were involved in the Tk 622 million alleged corruption in the purchase of home appliances and furniture.