The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) on Thursday filed four cases against 22 people, including four top officials of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL), on charge of swindling over Tk 607 crore by erasing international incoming call lists.
ACC deputy director SM Sahidur Rahman filed two cases while its deputy director Mahmud Hasan and deputy assistant director Rafi M Nasmus Sadat the remaining two with city’s Banani Police Station in the afternoon, Sahidur Rahman told UNB.
BTCL acting managing director SM Kalimullah and its former managing directors Dr Abu Syed Khan, Absar Alam and Kabiruzzaman were sued in connection with the massive graft. The other BTCL officials who were sued are Engr M Towfiq (ex-member– maintenance and operation); former general managers Anwarul Mamun and AHM Bakhtiarul Alam; ex-divisional engineers Zahir Uddin M Babar, M Khurshed Hasan and Habibur Rahman Pramanik; divisional engineers Anwarul Hossin Masud and M Sajjad Hossain; former assistant divisional engineers Khan M Kawser, M Mukter Ahmed and Runel Chakma; and assistant divisional engineers Saifur Rahman Bhuiyan, Samsad Mahmud, M Abdus Salam and Munira Begum.
The national graft watchdog also sued three officials of Ericsson Bangladesh Limited. They are contract manager Asif Jahid Chowdhury, customer operation manager (Robi) Nazrul Islam and service engineer Mashrurul Hakim.
According to the first information report (FIR), the accused swindled over Tk 607 crore by erasing international incoming call lists from the International Truck Exchange (ITX) of BTCL during December 2009 to November 2012. ACC sources said the International Truck Exchange (ITX) of the BTCL receives the international incoming calls through the international gateway and the ITX diverts the calls to the ICX (Interconnection Exchange) to take it to the mobile operators.
The incoming call list is recorded at both ITX and ICX stages. But, scrutinising the incoming call list of ITX-5 and ITX-7 located at Mohakhali during December 2009 to November 2012 in both ITX and ICX parts, the BTCL inquiry team found massive discrepancies.
During the ACC inquiry, it was found that a vested quarter in the BTCL removed a huge number of incoming calls from the ITX stage, but it remains intact at the ICX stage. On November 5 last year, the ACC also filed five cases against 14 people, including six BTCL officials, on charge of misappropriating public money of Tk 205 crore. – UNB
