Relief rice recovered from AL leader’s house in Barishal

Some 184 sacks of relief rice have been recovered from Barishal's Babuganj Upazila Awami League member, also Kedarpur Union Parishad Chairman Nure Alam's house.

Members of Barishal RAB-8 raided the house of Chairman Nure Alam on Wednesday midnight. They recovered the rice sacks, but the chairman escaped before RAB reached.

"A raid was conducted at Kedarpur Union Parishad in the evening following the allegations that the poor were given less relief rice. A fisherman was seen to be given 10 kg rice less than the supposed 40kg rice. Kedarpur Union Parishad's ward-6 member Md Jakir Hossain and member of ward-8 Md Rokonuzzaman were detained in this connection," said Mukur Chakma, assistant superintendent of police (ASP) of RAB-8, who led the operation.

Later during the questioning, they said that Chairman Nure Alam had given them 35 kg rice for distribution to per fishermen. They took 5kg of rice for themselves from each portion. So they were giving 30kg of rice instead of 40kg. Jakir and Rokonuzzaman told RAB that several sacks of rice were kept in the house of Chairman Nure Alam.

ASP Mukur Chakma said, "The raid at Chairman Nure Alam's house was conducted following information given by Jakir and Rokonuzzaman. From there, 184 sacks of rice weighing 30 kg each were recovered. So in total, 5,520kg rice were recovered. However, Chairman Nure Alam could not be arrested because he was not at home."

RAB is filing a case as a plaintiff with Babuganj Police Station against Nure Alam for storing the relief in his house. The detained Jakir and Rokonuzzaman were handed over to the mobile court and sentenced to a month in jail.