The arrestees were identified as CCC Superintendent Engineer (mechanical) Abul Hasnat, Transport Pool Officer Joysen Barua, CCC drivers Abdur Razzak, Shah Alam and owner of Sagarika Petrol Pump Jalal Ahmed.

A team of the joint forces arrested Razzak and Alam from their houses and Jalal from his petrol pump at Olonkar Intersection area in the early hours of yesterday. On their confessions, the team later arrested Hasnat and Joysen from CCC office at around 3:00pm and took all of them to the army camp at Sagarika Road in Halishahar.

The two drivers confessed that they have long been pilfering fuel being allocated for CCC transports in connivance with the two officials and the petrol pump owner.

"We were forced to pay Tk 300 each to the two officials against each vehicle of the CCC to get allocation of 80 litre fuel every day," revealed Alam and Razzak.

They said, "Generally we used to use around 20 to 30 litre of the allocated 80 litre fuel against each vehicle and the remaining fuel was sold to the petrol pump owner."

Through this system, a huge quantity of fuel has been pilfered everyday from the CCC, they admitted.

Of the around 550 vehicles of the CCC, around 175 still run on fuel while the rest were converted as CNG-run transports, sources said.

The two CCC officials however denied the allegations, they said.

The joint forces in the afternoon summoned CCC Chief Engineer Mokhtar Ahmad to their camp at Sagarika Road and detained him in connection with the fuel pilferage from the CCC Transport Pool.

The joint forces were interrogating all the six till writing of this report in the evening.

CCC Chief Engr released
Our staff correspondent adds at night: Detained CCC Chief Engineer Mokhtar Ahmad was released in the evening on the ground to allow him attend a ministerial meeting to be held in Dhaka today.

Sources said the chief engineer was however asked to report to the joint forces immediately after returning from Dhaka.