Woman agriculture officer arrested on bribery charges in Mangaldai

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MANGALDAI: The sleuths of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (V&AC) wing of the Assam Police arrested a lady official of the Agriculture Department for taking bribes for issuing certificates to farmers on Wednesday. The V&AC sleuths also seized Rs 15,000 from the possession of the arrested official.

The arrested Agriculture official is Agriculture Development Officer (ADO) Jyoti Rekha Medhi Das of Kharupetia Agriculture Circle. The V&AC sleuths arrested her under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The V&AC is supposed to produce her before the Court of Special Judge in Guwahati by this evening.

According to information, the arrested lady official had demanded Rs 1,500 from each of ten farmers for issuing agricultural farmer certificates to enable them to sell their paddy to the FCI and other procuring agencies. A middleman, Joynal Abedin, collected Rs 15,000 from ten farmers and communicated it to the arrested official. She asked Joynal Abedin to meet her in front of the Irrigation office at Santipur in Mangaldai at about 10.30 am. The A&CV sleuths caught hold of her and recovered the amount from her possession there.

The arrested official also had another allegation against her. A few days back, she issued a show-cause notice to six retail fertilizer traders of Kharupetia in connection with the allegation of selling the subsidized urea at a high rate to the farmers. She allegedly settled the issue outside her office by taking a hefty amount. According to sources, the police have launched an inquiry into this allegation too.

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