Mr Kamruzzaman, an Inspection Officer of Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institution (BSTI), was collecting money according to his office’s order. At that time, he was accused of taking bribe by the officers of Anti Corruption Bangladesh (ACC) and was arrested.
The officers of ACC, was not listening to Mr Kamruzzaman , who even told them that he had an office order for collecting those money. They believed one fraud and arrested him.
Mr Rezaul Karim Sarkar, additional director and office in charge, described us this story and told us that Mr Kamruzzaman was arrested and was wrongly accused of taking bribe. It was even believed that this thing was done by some ACC’s officers just to take pride from their subordinates.
At court’s order, he was released on this 11th May, after fifteen months of his arrest. Though he got his job back, but still he is not happy. He said, everyone in the country got the news of his arrest because of the chaos made of ACC but no one knows about his bail and even he was proved innocent.
He described the hard times his family had been through when he was in jail. His father worked as a low rank officer in a madrasa and his whole family was dependant on his income. Even his three siblings, who are studying engineering, was about to stop their college due to financial crisis. Mr Kamruzzaman is currently working at BSTI Khulna office.
He said, when he showed the office order to the ACC’s officer, they understood that they were wrong. Because the news was leaked on media, he was not bailed at that time. They informed him that they will treat the case very lightly and he will be released at court.
When we met Mr AKM Jahrul Haque, the PP of ACC at Chittagong court and inquired about the case- at first he avoided ud saying he was busy with his advocacy and later he said “why you guys are talking only about this case? There are many cases like this whis was proved at the court”.
Actually, what happened in that day: With the help of the papers of the case and from the source of BSTI, we got to know about the case. In Pathargata, Mr Shopon Kumar Das, had six firms named Three Star Umma Choron Kormokar, they used to made manual weight machines.
Each month, Mr Shopon had to pay BSTI Tk 2500, as the dealership fee. But after paying, the fee for two months, he stopped giving it and he had a default for the next for months and amount was Tk 10,000. After that he was taken to the BSTI office, where he told that his business is having a hard time and he applied for a 50% fee reduction. As his application was granted, he was ordered to pay Tk 5,000 to BSTI.
But, now this man played another game. Without, going to BSTI he went to ACC in Agrabad and informed them that some officers BSTI wanted Tk 5,000 bribe from him. But Shopon’s smart step was not understood by ACC’s officers; later the director signed over the bundle and sends him to BSTI.
When Kamruzzaman, made a receipt of Tk 300 from the registration and later when he was making another receipt of Tk. 5,000, two of ACC officers went in front of his table. Kamruzzaman was arrested and accused of taking bribe. The whole of BSTI was shocked but they were helpless in front of ACC officers.
At 11th May, 2009, when Kamruzzaman was released and was proved innocent by the order of the special court of Chittagong, Shopon Kumar Das was no where to be found. Mr Rezaul Karim Sarkar, additional director and office in charge, said Shopon is a fraud and he is still not paying taxes. He must be arrested.
A brief story of Kamruzzaman: This man is struggling from the beginning of his carrier. He has to take care of his whole family. Even after some brilliant result,
He failed to make a mark in his carrier. He studied from Jessore MM College and finished his graduation and masters in maths. He had an excellent academic result. He always dreamt of having a high rank official. But he couldn’t manage to do that and he got the job of an inspection officer in BSTI in June, 2007. He made his three siblings engineers and he is very proud of them.
Mehrab