Dhaka, Oct 8 (bdnews24.com)— The Anticorruption Commission on Wednesday filed 15 graft cases against 24 people, including seven engineers of the Chittagong Development Authority, over irregularities and corruption during a single 6km road construction project in the port city.
Major Zulfikar Ali Majumdar, Chittagong ACC director, told bdnews24.com: "Evidence of corruption and irregularities have been found involving the construction of the six-kilometre length of road from the city's Oxygen crossing to Kuaish."
He said the road works started in 2001 and came to a halt in 2007, but the concerned contractors had withdrawn all the allotted funds leaving the construction incomplete.
The 15 cases followed 15 separate instances of graft uncovered in the road construction work, under separate engineers for separate contractors, the ACC director said.
"The commission approved the cases before Eid-ul-Fitr. The Chittagong ACC office started its investigation into the allegations in April, " he added.
Kotwali police officer in charge Mohammad Shah Alam said the 24 accused included CDA's chief engineer Iqbal Hossain Majumdar, superintendent engineer Qazi Hasan Bin Shams, assistant engineers Mohammad Iliyas and Nurul Amin, deputy assistant engineers Golam Soroar Jahangir Alam and Hamidul Haque, and construction firm officials.
"There are five or six accused in each case," he said.
"They are being prosecuted for misappropriation of money, irregularities and corruption."
"It is the first such instance in Chittagong that 15 separate cases of graft are filed simultaneously like this," he added.
When contacted, chief engineer Iqbal Hossain declined to comment.
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