Public servants face land grabbing cases

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) on Thursday filed two cases against six people, including a deputy secretary and a deputy commissioner, on charge of defying prescribed rules in the mutation of government land against fake documents.

ACC assistant director Jatan Kumar Roy filed the two cases with Kotwali and Wari police stations in the capital.

Roy told UNB that the accused named in the cases are Janendra Nath Sarkar, deputy secretary of Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry; Abul Kashem and Sufia Kashem of Tangial; M Abdur Rouf, assistant commissioner of Naraynganj; M Masud Karim, deputy commissioner of Manikganj; and Prasad Chandra Biswas of Gazipur.

According to a case statement, Abul Kashem and Sufia Kashem of Tangial in connivance with Janendra Nath Sarkar (former additional commissioner of Dhaka) grabbed 0.55 acres of land of Bhawal Estate (government land) located in Tejgaon Circle.

Janendra Nath made the mutation of the land in the names of Abul Kashem and Sufia Kashem through fake records for his personal gain.

Another case statement said M Abdur Rouf, former assistant commissioner (land), Tejgaon Circle; and M Masud Karim, former additional deputy commission, Dhaka in connivance with each other made the mutation of 4.76 acres of government land (Bhawal Raj Court of Wards) in the name of Prasad Chandra Biswas through fake records.

According to the ACC inquiry, the grabbed land under Tejgaon Circle mentioned in the case statements was that of Bhawal Raj Court of Wards Estate. Later, the government acquired the land under the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950.

Bhawal Estate was a large zamindari estate in Bengal, now Bangladesh. The Estate, spreading over 579 square miles (1,500 km2), cover 2,274 villages with the combined population of nearly 500,000, many of them tenant farmers.