ACC sues former AL MP Ruhel for occupying railway land

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has filed a case against former Chattogram-1 lawmaker Mahboob Rahman Ruhel, son of late Awami League leader Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, over allegations of illegally occupying lands of Bangladesh Railways. 

ACC Deputy Assistant Director Tapsir Billah filed the case with the commission’s Chattogram-2 Integrated District Office on Monday, according to the first information report (FIR) obtained by the Daily Sun.

Ruhel is the managing director  of Gasmin Limited, an engineering and construction company. The ACC alleged that he illegally occupied 1.54 acres of railway land beyond the 0.74 acres leased to his company and used the additional land for commercial purposes between January 2017 and June 2025.

According to the FIR, the land grabbing caused the government a loss of Tk1.12 crore. The ACC head office approved the filing of the case on 5 October after following an investigation. 

According to the FIR, Mahboob Rahman applied for a long-term lease of 3.7564 acres of railway land to establish an environmentally friendly cement, sand and hollow-block factory on 18 September 2016.

A field inspection by a railway land officer in December the same year, however, found that 342.80 decimals of railway land across three plots were already under the applicant’s possession, according to the FIR.

The inspection report also found a semi-pucca factory building measuring 6,489 square feet and construction of a two-storey office building covering 990 square feet. The ACC alleged that the structures were built before the lease was granted.

The land was partly covered by an existing agricultural and fish-cultivation licensing arrangement in favour of another individual, Ekramul Haque, the FIR said.

Ruhel subsequently applied for a lease of 107.5 decimals of land on 12 June 2017, for Gasmin Limited’s factory. Following recommendations and approvals by railway authorities and the then railway minister, a lease agreement was signed on 12 March 2018, for  0.74 acres of railway land.