CBI nabs NF Railway official from Silchar Station

A CORRESPONDENT

SILCHAR: In a high profile bribery case, the CBI on Monday arrested three persons including the Senior Section Engineer of NF Railway Santosh Kumar from Silchar Station. Kumar was accused of taking a bribe of Rs 8 lakh from a construction company. The CBI team had also conducted a search operation in the construction office of the NFR in Silchar. Kumar, who was deputed as Senior Section Engineer in Jiribam-Imphal rail line construction work, was later taken to Guwahati for further interrogation. The CBI had also arrested Deputy Chief Engineer Rampal and Sajjan Choudhury, the owner of Tribeni Constructions.

A CBI press note further stated the investigating agency had registered a case against four NFR officials and others including the contractor of a private company and its employees. It was alleged that the said public servants along with private persons entered into a conspiracy for showing undue favours to the private contractors in award of contract agreement, preparation of Measurement Book, processing of running Account Bills, early release of payment against manipulated and inflated bills for the ongoing work of construction in North East Frontier Railway as well as for early release of Security Deposit and Bank Guarantees.

CBI laid a trap and caught Kumar from Silchar railway station while he was accepting a bribe of Rs. 8 lakh from the employee of the private company. Searches were conducted at around 19 locations including Assam, Imphal, Delhi, Bihar and Haryana at the premises of accused and others which led to recovery of Rs. 1.02 crore. Rs. 67 lakh was recovered from house of the in-laws of Rampal, a source informed.

According to the FIR, Tribeni Constructions had submitted a bill of Rs 19 crore for one of the projects with the inflated amount of Rs 2 crore which was manipulated in collusion with the NFR officials. Rampal was earlier given an amount of Rs 20 lakh and another Rs 35 lakh was given to Assistant Executive Engineer B U Laskar, whose name also figured in the FIR. A sum of Rs. 36 lakh was supposed to be handed over to Santosh Kumar. Sources said, a team of 8 CBI officials came to Silchar on last Saturday to catch Santosh Kumar red handed. Apart from the office of the construction branch in Silchar, the CBI conducted search at the residence of Kumar. CBI had seized some documents too.

Also Read: CBI arrests NF Railway officer, six others in bribery case

Also Watch: