Cachar Election Department Head Assistant Produced Before Chief Judicial Magistrate Court

Special Correspondent

Silchar: In the midst of all the heat and dust of election process and the enforcement of model code of conduct, the head assistant of election department of Cachar, Atashi Dutta Tarafdar, who was caught red handed on Thursday by the officials of the anti corruption cell of the Assam police while taking bribe from the owner and proprietor of a Bengali weekly in Silchar, was on Friday produced before the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate for permission to take Atashi to Guwahati for further interrogation and action. The accused was charged under ACB PS 04/2019 u/s 7 (a) PC Act, 1988. Atashi fell into the net of anti corruption department when the owner at the instruction of the officials concerned handed over an amount of Rs 30,000 to her in lieu of clearing his bill of Rs 2.72 lakh.

On further checking of her bag, officials stumbled upon bundles of currency notes totaling Rs 2, 74, 500 in addition to Rs 30,000. According to the statement of the former editor of the Bengali weekly, he was allotted work order for printing voters’ lists and forms by the election department for which tender was floated. After executing the work order, he approached Atashi for payment against his bills. Atashi would not budge and make it clear ‘no bribe, no bill payment.’ She added she will have to share the ill gotten money with other staff of the department and this is the system.

Determined to expose the corrupt system reeking the election department here, the former editor first approached the CBI office here who advised him to contact anti corruption cell of Assam police at Guwahati. He acted accordingly and on his feedback, a team of officials from the cell landed here on Thursday, kept watch around the election department in plain clothes. He went inside followed by the officials and as directed paid Atashi the bribe money. For identification, the currency notes were mixed with some chemical element.

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