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Guwahati : Assam police on Thursday had arrested five auditors of the Accountant General (AG) office, Guwahati on charges of taking bribes of several lakh rupees from the panchayat secretaries in Assam’s Charaideo district.
According to the reports, the five audit officers went to the upper Assam district to probe financial irregularities in various village panchayats and stayed at a hotel at Sonari town.
The team had allegedly demanded bribe ranging between Rs 5000 to Rs 20,000 from the panchayat secretaries for clearance any financial irregularities.
After receiving a complaint against the auditor team, Charaideo district Deputy Commissioner has asked the district police to conduct an operation at the hotel, where the team was stayed.
A team of Charaideo district police led by Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Lamhao Dongal conducted a search operation at the hotel and held five auditors and recovered Rs 3.34 lakh in cash.
During the search operation, police had also recovered several documents including cash books from the hotel rooms.
Police had arrested senior audit officer Rafiquddin Ahmed and four other auditors Saikat Bhattacharya, Hem Bahadur, Subrat Duwarah and Jugal Kishore Tamuli.
Police had also arrested a panchayat secretary identified as Surajit Pal, who assisted them in the incident.
A senior police official of Charaideo district said that, the Charaideo district Deputy Commissioner had directed to conduct the operation.
“The auditor had demanded bribes ranging between Rs 5000 to Rs 20,000 from each panchayat secretary. They were collected money from the panchayat secretaries at the hotel without verification of cash books. An ex-panchayat secretary named Dulen Gohain had already given Rs 10,000 to the team and he was ready to pay another Rs 5,000 today. When we received the information, our team had contacted him and caught the auditors red handed,” the police official said.
Police investigation is going on to find out more information.
(By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Guwahati)
