A court in Dhaka on Monday placed Md Asadul Islam, surveyor at Dhaka’s Lalbagh Revenue Circle assistant commissioner (land) office who was caught red-handed with Tk1 lakh in bribe money, on a two-day remand.
Jewel Rana, metropolitan magistrate of Dhaka, passed the order following a hearing.
Earlier, Hafizur Rahman, investigating officer of the case and assistant director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), produced the accused in court and applied for a three-day remand for interrogation.
During the hearing, Delwar Jahan Rumi, lawyer for the ACC, presented arguments in favour of the remand, while Farhad Hossain Niyon, defence lawyer, opposed the application. Upon hearing both sides, the court granted a two-day remand.
According to the ACC’s remand application, Asadul Islam, surveyor, demanded a bribe of Tk80 lakh from Md Monirul Islam, a retired soldier, in exchange for determining land boundaries, separating government and private land, and preparing a layout map.
The application mentioned that Monirul Islam obtained a registered irrevocable power of attorney from the owners of 282 decimals of land in Charkamrangi mouza under Lalbagh police station in Dhaka district.
On 27 April, he submitted an application to the deputy commissioner of Dhaka for boundary determination and layout map preparation for the land.
However, as the work remained incomplete after nearly six months, he communicated with the Lalbagh Revenue Circle office multiple times, where he was eventually instructed to contact Asadul Islam, surveyor.
Monirul subsequently reported the bribe demand to the ACC. Following initial verification of the truth of the allegation, a special team from the ACC Dhaka District Office-1 planned a trap operation.
According to the ACC complaint, Monirul gave a bribe of Tk1 lakh to Asadul around 11am last Tuesday in the surveyor’s designated room at the office of the assistant commissioner (land) of Lalbagh Revenue Circle.
After taking the money, Asadul placed it on the second shelf of the side table to his right, whereupon members of the pre-positioned ACC trap team caught him red-handed.
Tk1 lakh kept in a khaki-coloured envelope was later recovered from the second shelf of the table.
The serial numbers of the recovered banknotes matched exactly with the numbers provided by the complainant. The ACC also mentioned in its remand application that Asadul confessed to receiving the bribe during questioning.
