The arrest of seven senior officers of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) by the Chief Minister's Special Vigilance Cell on Friday on charges of corruption in the implementation of a de-siltation drive in the rivers, streams and drains of Guwahati has literally converted the civic body into a synonym of scams. The scandal was first detected by the previous GMC Commissioner Devasish Sharma on getting scent of irregularities in the vital de-siltation drive, following which an inquiry was conducted and the report forwarded to the Chief Minister's Special Vigilance Cell. The detection of the scandal and the arrest of seven senior officials of GMC, including a lady officer, have brought to light more than one thing. Number One, almost all the senior officials of GMC were involved in such a major scandal. Number Two, these officers – the list also includes Babulal Sarma, a former Home Secretary in the Government of Assam who was appointed Officer on Special Duty (OSD) following his retirement – were carrying out such corrupt practices under the very nose of the government which had declared its zero-tolerance stand against corruption. Number Three, these officers were allegedly openly hand-in-glove with a particular contractor firm in siphoning off a huge sum of money from the GMC corpus. The arrest and the news of the scandal have triggered off several questions in the minds of the tax-payer citizens of Guwahati. The most common question is: Could such a brazen act of collectively siphoning off a huge sum of money have taken place without the blessings of some powerful person(s)? Another question is: Is this the only such case of misappropriation in the GMC, or is it just the tip of the iceberg? A couple of more questions that have emerged in the minds of the citizens are: What was the track record of the OSD, a retired Assam Civil Service (ACS) officer, especially when he was holding an important post in the Education Department for several years? Did he also commit similar irregularities when he was posted in the vital Home Department of the state government? Will the government now conduct an assessment of the assets of all the seven arrested officers and ascertain whether their assets are disproportionate to their respective incomes? And, will the allegedly guilty officers finally secure bail and subsequently get a clean chit, or will they be tried in a fast track court, held guilty and given exemplary punishment?