ACC sues ex-railway DG, 6 others

Staff Reporter :

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has initiated legal action against seven former senior officials of Bangladesh Railway, including its former director general Md Tohidul Anwar Chowdhury, in connection with alleged corruption and mismanagement that caused the state to lose nearly Tk598 crore in the DEMU train project.

The case was filed on Tuesday at the ACC’s Integrated District Office in Dhaka by Assistant Director Raju Ahmed, the commission confirmed on Wednesday. According to the case documents, the officials are accused of colluding in fraud and forgery during the planning and procurement of Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) trains.

Investigators found that the project had been approved without conducting any feasibility or viability study, leading to the import of trains that were both technically unsuitable and economically impractical for the country’s railway system.

The ACC probe revealed that the DEMU trains proved largely incompatible with Bangladesh’s infrastructure and technology, rendering them ineffective and wasteful.
This, the commission stated, resulted in a staggering loss of Tk598.84 crore to the national exchequer while allegedly serving the personal and vested interests of the accused.

The case has been filed under multiple sections of the Penal Code, including 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467-471 (forgery and use of forged documents), 109 (abetment), along with section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.