Tk 10m fishplates ‘disappear’ from railway’s PWI store

As many as 7,000 fishplates worth Tk 10 million (1 crore) disappeared from the Permanent Way Inspector (PWI) store of Bonarpara railway junction in Gaibandha, reports news agency UNB.

Bonarpara railway police station officer-in-charge Taposh Pundit said disappearance of fishplates weighing 60 tonnes from a store at the east corner of the secured Railway Engineering Department is a mysterious incident.

Bonarpara rail station manager Khalilur Rahman claimed a former senior assistant engineer had sold many things from the store of the engineering department secretly before his recent transfer.

Immediately after his transfer, assistant store keeper Dipak Kumar Singh and senior deputy assistant engineer Abdul Mazed came as additional in-charge who only used to come to Bonarpara for clearing salary bills, said Khalilur Rahman.

After coming from Bogura on Tuesday morning, Abdul Mazed opened the store and suspecting shortage of stock started counting fishplates and discovered the disappearance, he said.

Abdul Mazed said he is only additional in-charge of the store. The fishplates may have been removed from the store during the tenure of former in-charge, he added.

Assistant store keeper Dipak Kumar Singh said he will file a case with the Bonarpara police station in this regard on Wednesday.

Divisional chief engineer of the railways department, Anwar Hossain said a probe body, led by the Bogura divisional engineer Md Saidur Rahman, has been formed to investigate the matter.

Actions will be taken against the guilty found in the investigation, he said.