Flash flood: 2 held, 61 sued over graft in haors

A government official was among two held as 61 persons have been sued in Sunamganj for their negligence and irregularities in construction of embankments that collapsed causing the flash flood in haor regions earlier in April.

The arrestees were Water Development Board’s Executive Engineer Afsar Uddin and a contractor Bachchu Mia – held over the graft in embankment of the haor region.

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the lawsuit today with Sunamganj Sadar Model Police Station, Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, the anti-graft body’s public relations officer, told The Daily Star.

READ MORE: Havoc in haor

On April 15, Afsar Uddin was withdrawn and attached to the WDB head office in Dhaka amid allegations of corruption in the construction and repairing works of the embankment around the haor areas.

Contractor Bachchu Mia is the proprietor of Ms Ibrahim Traders, the firm that secured the embankment work in Sunamganj haor region.

ACC recommended awarding exemplary punishment to Ministry of Water Resources’ secretary, director general of Water Development Board and 14 other officials for “utmost negligence”.

Triggered by torrential rainfall, flash flood struck the haor belt on April damaging half a million metric tonne of Boro crops in the area, according to government estimation.

Three weeks after the flash flood around 900 metric tons (MT) of fish, several thousand ducks, frogs and leeches died in the flash flood.