Purnia’s land acquisition officer in vigilance net

PURNIA Vigilance Investigation Bureau (VIB) sleuths on Friday arrested the land acquisition officer of Purnia for allegedly demanding and accepting bribe for releasing compensation money to a person whose land was acquired for a national highway, official said

PURNIA

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Vigilance Investigation Bureau (VIB) sleuths on Friday arrested the land acquisition officer of Purnia for allegedly demanding and accepting bribe for releasing compensation money to a person whose land was acquired for a national highway, official said.

One Nitesh Kumar of Purnia had written to the VIB alleging that land acquisition officer Arbind Kumar Bharti had demanded ₹1.30 lakh before releasing ₹31 lakh to him for the land acquired for construction of NH-107.

“We found the allegation to be true during probe and laid a trap. Bharti was arrested when he was accepting the bribe in his office,” Surendra Kumar, deputy superintendent of police (vigilance), who led the team, said. “We are taking the accused to Patna for further legal action,” Kumar said.

This is the second arrest for corruption in last two weeks in Purnia. On July 9, labour superintendent Kumar Alok Ranjan and his peon Manoj Kumar were arrested from his office while accepting a bribe of ₹55,000 for the disposal of a file related to cess tax.