390 FAKE FIREARMS LICENSES ISSUED BY RANGPUR DC OFFICE ACC approves charge sheet against 391 [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

390 FAKE FIREARMS LICENSES ISSUED BY RANGPUR DC OFFICE ACC approves charge sheet against 391

Local May 16, 2019

The Anti-Corruption Commission has found evidences that the office of Rangpur deputy commissioner had issued 390 fake licences of firearms to mostly retired personnel of the Army, Border Guards Bangladesh, thr Bangladesh Navy, the police and the Ansar.
The firearms licences helped these retired people to get jobs as security guards as well as of private security firms, ACC officials told New Age.
They also disclosed the names and identities of the fake licence holders.
It took the ACC two years of investigations to find out the gross irregularities.
On Wednesday, the ACC approved the charge sheets that would be pressed against 91 people who allegedly issued or took the fake licences, ACC public relations officer Pranab Kumar Bhattacharjee told reporters.
He said that on May 18, 2017, Rangpur DC office filed a case against its office assistant cum computer operator M Shamsul Islam for his alleged involvement with the irregularities of issuing fake licences of firearms.
He said that the case was filed with the Rangpur Kotwali police station by the DC office’s administrative officer Amulya Chandra Roy.
As the police station forwarded the case to the ACC for investigations ACC assistant director M Atiqur Rahman found out the names of the 90 other accused.
The ACC sleuth found out that Shamsul Islam took at least Tk 20 lakh as bribe for issuing the fake licences, said the ACC PRO.
Shamsul Islam was the keeper of documents and the register of the DC office’s Judicial Munsikhana, said Bhattacharjee.
He removed the registers’ pages and pasted new pages for recording the fake licences issued to the beneficiaries, said the PRO.
During the investigation, the ACC seized 357 fake licences, 354 firearms and 4,038 cartridges, he said.
He said that 357 fake licence holders came to the ACC office in Rangpur responding to notices to face interrogations while 33 others ignored ACC notices.
Shamsul Islam and his key accomplice Abdul Majid were arrested by the police immediate after the police filed a separate case in June 2017.
In his confessional statement Shamsul Islam admitted his involvement with the gross irregularities, said ACC officials.
They said that Samsul Islam and Majid, a retired Army lance corporal, designed the plan.
They also said that after the retirement Majid joined in a private security firm as security officer.
In April, a Rangpur court sent 60 former Army personnel to jail rejecting their bail applications.