KATHMANDU, Sept 10: The chairperson of Janakpurdham Sub-Metropolitan City-24 along with the ward secretary and an office assistant have been caught red handed with a bribe of Rs 450,000.

Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) from the head office and the Bardibas office on Tuesday afternoon arrested ward chairperson Upendra Sahni, secretary Upendra Sah and office assistant Bijay Mandal while they were accepting the bribe amount from a service-seeker for recommending road access to their plot of land. 

According to the officials of the CIAA Bardibas office, the anti-graft body is filing paperworks to register a case against the arrested individuals while they are being transported to the head office. 

“An on-field team of officials caught the trio in the act of receiving a bribe of Rs 450,000 from a service seeker,” spokesperson of the Bardibas-based office of CIAA, Tulsi Ram Paudel told Republica, “As per our preliminary report, the ward chair, secretary and a middleman had been repeatedly asking service-seekers for bribes for executing simple office works.” 

Spokesperson Paudel added that office assistant Mandal has been identified as the middleman responsible for promoting the bribery culture at the office. The CIAA team arrested Mandal with the bribe amount of Rs 450,000.

The CIAA team had reached the ward office at around 2 pm on Tuesday following a complaint from locals last week. According to the CIAA Bardibas office, the trio received the bribe amount from a resident of ward 8 of the sub-metropolitan city who has a plot of land in Basahiya locality of ward 24.

 
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