Members of Deluabari union parishad under Durgapur upazila in Rajshahi on Thursday alleged that UP chairman Md Riajul Islam had embezzled 1.7 tonnes of rice from gratuitous relief of the government recently.
At a press conference at Rajshahi Union of Journalists office in the city on Thursday morning, eight of twelve members of the union parishad made the allegation against UP chairman Riajul Islam.
Md Abul Bashar, one of the eight union parishad members, alleged that their chairman in his second term withdrew and distributed 6 tonnes of GR rice on September 8.
‘Of the amount, 3.5 tonnes of rice were distributed among 196 people. Though each poor individual was about to receive 30 kilogrammes of rice, the chairman distributed less than 2kg among them,’ he said.
‘Riajul Islam sold 1.7 tonnes of rice worth Tk 68,000 secretly while they also seized 600 kilogrammes of rice from the chairman’s warehouse.’
Bashar alleged that the chairman issued a fake death certificate to help UP member Kamruzzaman get bail in a drug case on August 1.
‘When the incident came to light, Riajul issued another certificate to the same person twenty days later stating that she was alive,’ he said.
Abul Bashar further alleged that the chairman had also embezzled Tk 18.48 lakh of their monthly allowance since 2016.
He said that the chairman was also accused in a check forgery case while there were allegations of grabbing people’s pond using fake documents and digging ponds on arable land forcibly.
The UP member stated that a mobile court sentenced Riajul Islam to seven days in jail for forcibly digging ponds on arable land on January 19 in 2019.
Allegation had it that the chairman also used public fund to build paved roads to his own ponds.
At the press conference, the UP members said that they had lodged written complaints with Durgapur upazila nirbahi officer and Rajshahi deputy commissioner against the chairman.
They also said that they would also file a no-confidence motion against Riajul Islam soon.
The chairman, however, denied the allegation of embezzling GR rice against him.
He claimed that he had distributed all allotted rice among the poor and the UP members were complaining against him in various places instead of holding talks with him.
Riajul also claimed that he did not issue any death certificate against a living person. ‘Some might have faked his signature in this regard,’ he added.
Riajul Islam also claimed that he could not provide monthly allowance to the UP members as revenue was hardly collected in the union parishad.
