Kolkata: The anti-corruption branch (ACB) of Bengal Police on Tuesday arrested a sub-assistant engineer of the West Bengal State Rural Development Agency in Hooghly for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 20,000 from a govt contractor.An ACB officer said the accused engineer demanded the money from the contractor in exchange for releasing the earnest money deposited for a road construction project under a panchayat scheme. The project, estimated to cost around Rs 1 crore, was awarded to the contractor in 2023 and was completed by the end of 2025.Acting on the complaint, ACB sleuths laid a trap at the zilla parishad office in Chinsurah. The accused allegedly accepted Rs 20,000 from the contractor, when the ACB team caught him red-handed. The entire bribe amount was recovered from his possession.
