The army-led joint forces raided CCF's house at Uttara on May 29, and found the money hidden inside a rice drum in the kitchen, and inside a pillow and a mattress. The joint forces had information that the CCF had a lot of money hidden in his house. The CCF reportedly admitted to owning of 15 katas of land in the city, and five more plots in Uttara under an alias, besides keeping a huge amount of money in banks and gold in lockers.

The CCF reportedly confessed to receiving monthly payments of Tk five lakh each from the divisional forest officers (DFOs), as his percentage of their illegal monthly income. He also confessed to paying a sum of Tk 80 lakh to Khaleda Zia, the former prime minister, and Tariqul Islam, the former environment and forest minister, for his promotion to CCF.

Osman Gani also confessed to his involvement in the felling of trees and providing tenders to parties, and leasing forest land illegally, in exchange of bribes. He admitted to giving deer and other wild animals to some ministers of the immediate past government in order to gain their favour.

The joint forces arrested the DFOs of Chittagong and Sylhet on June 25, as crackdown on corrupt forest department high-ups continues. The forces also searched the offices of another DFO and of the chief of Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation Department of Chittagong. The forces seized nearly Tk 13 lakh kept in a cupboard and a bag in the chamber of a deputy ranger of the Sadar Range in Chittagong.

The government has suspended eight top-level forest officials as their names had appeared in the list of corrupt government officials, prepared by the joint forces, based on the information divulged by detained CCF. Four of the suspended officials had been arrested on June 24. They were on the list of suspected corrupt top-level officials who allegedly plundered the forest resources.

The accomplices of Osman Gani reportedly confessed to their involvement in amassing huge amounts of money and property by selling trees, transferring officials, and leasing forestland illegally. The DFO of Sylhet, Lasker Maksudur Rahman, accumulated wealth worth about Tk six crore.

The CF of Khulna Division, Mizanur Rahman, reportedly confessed to owing a house in England and huge landed property in Dhaka. Mizan has also admitted to depositing several crores of Taka, and having bank accounts, in some foreign countries.

The joint forces seized bonds worth Tk 50 lakh, and deposit books of different banks, from the residence of Ali Kabir Haider, the CF of Dhaka Division. He owns a five-storied building and three plots in city.

The joint forces have searched several places to arrest Abu Hanif Patwari, a dismissed DFO of forest department who had amassed huge wealth through corruption. He owns flats in Dhanmondi and New Paltan, and a one bigha plot in Baridhara. Besides, he has got lakhs of Taka deposited in different banks.

The investigative report carried by the Daily Star on June 5 revealed some home truths about the plundering of our forest resources by a section of corrupt forest officials. The report entitled "Insatiable greed wipes out a reserved forest" said: "A total of 2,415 acres of the reserved forest, which was supposed to grow into a lush habitat for many kinds of wild life in the last 21 years since 1984, is now totally destroyed due to rampant illegal felling of trees by loggers under the safe shelter of the officials of Divisional Forest Office (DFO) and Panchhari Range Office. Local forest officials of all levels directly helped the loggers to plunder the forest in exchange for hefty sums of bribes, making sure that they would not go out into the forest for routine inspections and monitoring, but they did not hesitate to misappropriate allocated government funds for the purpose, sources said."

Wiping out of the forest is also being done through grabbing the forestland. Forestland grabbing was so rampant, and carried on with such impunity, that it was almost ceased to be a cognizable offence.

According to a forest department report, former state minister Mizanur Rahman Sinha, former BNP lawmaker MA Hashem, FBCCI president Abdul Awal Mintoo, and others, have illegally occupied 558 acres of forestland long Dhaka-Mymensingh highway.

The detained CCF Osman Gani has informed the interrogators that former ministers, MPs and political bigwigs have illegally occupied nearly 2,50,000 acres of forestland with the help of top level forest officials. Lack of proper implementation of laws, and unbridled corruption in the forest department, have allowed the land grabbers go away scot-free.

According to government statistics, the area under forestation in the country is less than 10 percent of the total land area, while the required standard set for any country is 25 percent for maintaining proper environment. Bangladesh is facing numerous environmental hazards due to wiping out of forests.

Deforestation has taken place at such an increasing rate that it has threatened the ecological balance of the country. Large-scale deforestation has endangered many species of wildlife. The recent landslide tragedy in Chittagong, which claimed 123 lives, was also an outcome of felling trees, as the trees hold the soil firmly. The more forests we lose, the more we shall face environmental catastrophe.

A forest is an important natural resource that contributes much to maintaining ecological balance. Unfortunately, the people who were made custodians of such valuable national resources were involved in massive plundering of forests. Osman Gani has disclosed the names of 34 top-level officials who were involved in all sorts of looting of forest resources and accumulated cores of Taka.

It beggars the imagination to think of the amount of money some top level officials of the forest department had earned during the tenure of the immediate past government.

In fact, they turned the forests into their private fiefdom, for plundering all its wealth. Their plundering knew no limits. All the corrupt forest bosses and other beneficiaries, who are mostly former ministers and high-ups, must be brought to book, and their ill-gotten wealth should be confiscated.

ANM Nurul Haque is a columnist of The Daily Star.