Bhupen Goswami
Guwahati: The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption of Assam Police has arrested Meenakshi Kakati Kalita, assistant commissioner of the state GST office, red-handed in a bribery case. Kalita had admitted to taking a bribe of Rs 4,000. During the search, the team recovered more than Rs 65 lakh from his house. A senior official of the Assam Police headquarters today said a complaint was received in the directorate alleging that Meenakshi Kakati Kalita had demanded Rs 10,000 from the complainant to reactivate the GST online functions. Later, the bribe amount was reduced to Rs 8,000 by the accused government official, the senior official added. The complainant, who was reluctant to pay the bribe of Mangi, approached the Directorate to take necessary legal action against the public servant.After this, a trap was installed in Kar Bhawan (the commissioner’s office of Assam’s State GST). Meenakshi Kakati Kalita was caught red-handed soon after she took Rs 4,000 as part of the bribe demanded from the complainant. The bribe money was recovered from their possession and seized in the presence of independent witnesses. Rajib Saikia further said that on finding sufficient evidence against the accused public servant, he was arrested by a team of Assam’s Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption. A case under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (amended in 2018) has been registered against Kalita at the ACB police station, the official said. Necessary legal action is being taken in the case. On the other hand, the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption team has recovered Rs 65,37,500 from the house of the accused during the search. On the other hand, in the last 2 years, the Assam government has waged the most effective war against drugs, causing severe damage to the consumption and supply network.Meanwhile, during the ongoing operation, narcotics worth Rs 1430 crore have been seized with the arrest of 9309 people so far. The Assam government has also successfully destroyed cannabis and opium cultivation on 420 acres. Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma today said that earlier it was observed that many youths took the wrong path due to drugs, however, in the last two years, the government took stern action against the drug menace and uprooted drug trafficking. On May 18, Dibrugarh police led by Barbarua police station OC Suman Shah seized a large number of banned drugs and arrested four drug peddlers near Bogibeel Bridge this afternoon. Based on the information, the police team chased the Baleno car, which had registration number AS06AA 8841 and managed to nab the peddlers. Police seized 174.17 grams of banned drugs and a Baleno car on suspicion of heroin during the operation. The police arrested Chiranjeevi Paite, Dipankar Kutum, Baluram Dutta and Pabitra Kutum of Silapathar in Dhemaji.
