Retired engineer Tosdiqur Rahman arrested in GMC de-siltation scam

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Retired chief executive engineer of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), Tosdiqur Rahman, an accused in the GMC de-siltation scam who was absconding, was finally arrested on Saturday by the Chief Minister's Special Vigilance Cell from Suru in Rajasthan. Rahman was brought to Guwahati and today he was produced before the court of the Special Judge, Guwahati. Rahman was remanded to seven days of police custody.

The CM's Special Vigilance Cell had earlier arrested nine persons allegedly involved in the GMC de-siltation scam. The arrests were made in connection with a case registered at the Vigilance Police Station (No 04 /2022 u/s 120(B)/420/406/409/468/471 IPC, r/w Section 13(1)(a)/13(2) of the PC Act, 1988) based on the findings of a preliminary inquiry by the Chief Minister's Special Vigilance Cell.

The previous Commissioner of the GMC had detected some irregularities and illegalities in the execution of de-siltation works in the civic body and he consequently directed Pankaj Chakravarty, Joint Commissioner of the GMC, to conduct an inquiry. The inquiry report, which was forwarded to the Chief Minister's Special Vigilance Cell, mentioned that a firm named M/s Dinsan Global Venture Pvt Ltd was engaged for hiring of vehicles /machineries for carrying out the de-siltation of channels/drainage for the period from April 2, 2022 to May 26, 2022. The firm subsequently submitted bills with forged weighbridge slips for several crores of rupees and withdrew the government funds. The firm also submitted bills to the GMC showing supply of vehicles/machineries at inflated rates. The officers and staff of GMC allegedly conspired and did not implement de-siltation works as per terms and conditions laid down in the tender documents and payments were released to the contractors without proper execution of works based on forged and fake weighbridge slips for their pecuniary benefits. In this way, government funds meant for the developmental works of Guwahati city were allegedly misappropriated.

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