Srinagar, March 30 A chief engineer of the public works department in Jammu and Kashmir was Friday arrested while accepting bribes.Nazir Ahmad Shah, chief engineer in the roads and buildings department, was arrested here Friday morning in the Karan Nagar area of the city, barely half a kilometre away from the headquarters of the state vigilance organisation, while taking Rs.50,000 from a local contractor for signing his payment order.'We arrested the chief engineer red-handed in the presence of an executive magistrate while he was accepting a Rs.50,000 bribe from a local contractor,' said an official of an anti-corruption organisation here.Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had announced a proactive campaign against corruption in public life in the state when he took over here in November 2005.Azad has also passed a sweeping legislation in the state assembly, empowering the government to attach and auction properties of public servants with a tainted past and whose assets were disproportionate to known sources of income.
(c) Indo-Asian News Service
