A senior railway official has been arrested for taking a bribe from a contractor in lieu of clearing his bill in Agra.
CBI officials at the divisional railway manager’s office in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra. (Photo: India Today)
A team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials has arrested a senior railway official posted at the divisional railway manager’s office in Agra for taking a bribe from a contractor in lieu of clearing his bill.
The official was trapped by the CBI when he accepted a bribe from the contractor outside the personnel department of the DRM office. As soon as he accepted the cash from the contractor, the CBI team pounced on him. To avoid getting caught with the cash, the officer threw the bundle of cash away from him and some of the cash was picked up by passersby.
After the official’s arrest, most of the local railway officers switched off their phones.
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Following the interrogation of the officer by the CBI officials in the presence of the Senior Divisional Personnel Officer Mansi Verma, most of the cabins of senior officers at the DRM office were lying empty till afternoon.
Divisional Commercial Manager Prashasti Shrivastava told India Today that a railway officer had been arrested by the CBI for graft.
A retired railway officer said several other senior officials were caught taking bribes in the past, but the charges did not stick for too long.
In 2016, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had caught the parcel officer of Agra Fort Railway Station. In 2018, a railway employee was arrested by the police for cheating people in the name of getting them a job at the railways. In 2019, the Divisional Engineer of Railway Division Agra was arrested by the ACB in Dholpur for accepting a bribe.
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Former member of the Zonal Railway Users Consulting Committee, Dr S Qureshi, said corruption was rampant in the railways and although several people had been caught taking bribes, action taken against them was kept a secret.
He said this point was raised in the ZRUCC meetings, but the names of the officers caught taking bribes and their punishment were not made public.
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