Two NBR staff held over job question leak

Two employees of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) have been suspended after they were arrested over the alleged leak of questions for a recruitment test of the Department of Youth Development. Seven people, including five government employees, were arrested in connection with the case.

The two suspended employees are Md Jahangir Alam, an office assistant-cum-computer typist at the Central Tax Survey Zone under the NBR, and Md Nur Mohammad, an office support staff member at the Withholding Tax Management Unit.

Separate office orders issued by their respective offices on Saturday confirmed their temporary suspension.

On Friday afternoon, officials of the Special Reserve Battalion (SRB) said at a press conference in Karwan Bazar, Dhaka, that seven people had been arrested over the alleged question leak. Two of them were NBR employees.

SRB-3 commander Lieutenant Colonel Faizul Arefin said the team had recovered a large number of stamps, bank cheques, certificates, national identity cards, admit cards and mobile phones from the suspects.

Initial investigations suggest that the suspects took between Tk 8 lakh and Tk 10 lakh from jobseekers, according to the SRB.

The suspects claimed that they had received the questions through Facebook. However, they could not provide reliable information to support their claim, the press conference was told.

The recruitment test for 242 vacant posts of assistant youth development officer was scheduled to take place on 10 October. A total of 319,000 candidates had applied for the posts.

The test was due to begin at 11am. However, the authorities postponed it after confirming the question leak at 10:03am on the same day.

Following the incident, the SRB began a covert investigation. Seven people were arrested during raids in Dhaka and nearby areas from Wednesday to Friday.

The Department of Youth Development filed a case with Motijheel Police Station on 11 October.

Lieutenant Colonel Arefin said the arrested government employees included Md Rubel Islam, a data entry operator at the Department of Environment, and NBR employees SM Imdadul Islam, 35, and Jahangir, 38. Nur Mohammad, 30, also works at the NBR.

Another suspect, Asadul Islam, 33, is an office support staff member at the Ministry of Defence.

The two other arrested people are job seekers Md Mofizul Islam, 23, and Md Hasinur Rahman Sujon, 32.