DIMAPUR, DECEMBER 10 (MExN): Against Corruption And Unabated Taxation (ACAUT) Nagaland on Saturday said the Chief Minister of Nagaland, the Nagaland Police and the Department of Food & Civil Supplies should respond to a number of concerns connected to the detection of the alleged diversion of rice meant for PDS into the open market.
To the law-enforcing agency, ACAUT wanted to know whether the Dimapur police had made arrest of the accused persons after the registration of the FIR or whether they are “under any kind of political pressure to go slow on the FIR.” While accepting that the accused were “powerful people, virtually untouchable for the last 2 decades as they are protected by politicians, Naga factional groups and other interest groups,” ACAUT however urged the police “not to let their reputation go down the drain.”
It also wanted to know why the police have not raided the “approximately 15-20 mills in and around Dimapur in the business of polishing and repackaging FCI rice.” The ACAUT alleged that these mills are supplied FCI rice and wheat by stockiest, including the current accused, and the repackaged items are then sold off to gullible consumers as branded rice or wheat. “Unless, the intention is to weaken the case, the police should have raided the mills on 9th evening itself when the FIR was registered,” it stated.
To the Food & Civil Supplies Department, ACAUT wanted to know whether the department will cancel the super-stockiest license awarded to one of the accused in the light of his involvement in this multi- thousand crore scam. Alleging that the scam is responsible for generating the maximum black money in Nagaland since decades past, ACAUT questioned whether the bank accounts of the accused persons will be frozen by the police and the taxmen? To the Chief Minister who is in charge of the Food and Civil Supplies Department, ACAUT said the CM should explain how “our own rice, due to us at Rs. 3/- per kg are siphoned off and the same rice resold to us, the consumers, at the rate of Rs. 35/- per kg.”
“To be fair to the present Chief Minister, his predecessors did initiate this scam but it is incumbent upon the serving CM to come clean with a statement and a promise to give a free hand to Dimapur police to probe the case,” it stated.
