FF certificates of five secretaries cancelled:Daily Sun

  The government has cancelled Freedom-Fighter Certificates of four secretaries and a joint secretary as the relevant papers were proved false in the investigation into the matter of serious allegation of forgery. On the basis of the FF certificates obtained through forgery they extended their tenure of service. Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque made the disclosure to journalists
after a meeting of National Freedom Fighters Council at Maghbazar in the capital on Sunday. Public administration ministry will take legal steps against the officials, he further said. “The government has made a decision to cancel Freedom-Fighter Certificates of those who have taken them without the consent of National Freedom Fighters Council,” Mozammel mentioned. The fraudsters are health secretary Niaz Uddin Mia, former secretary of liberation war affairs ministry KH Masud Siddiqui, PSC secretary KM Amir Hossain, former PMO secretary and incumbent chairman of privatisation commission Molla Waheduzzaman and joint secretary (OSD) of liberation war affairs ministry Abul Kasem Talukdar. The government has made the decision against them as the Anti-Corruption Commission has found that the officials collected certificates ‘illegally’ to extend their service length. Questions about the process of taking Freedom-Fighter Certificates by public officials abound in the media in the last couple of months. The high-level decision is the outcome of the ACC enquiry and media reports. It was learnt that the officials collected the certificates to extend their service tenure which would end this year. But existing rules stipulate that anyone who had not declared himself or herself as a freedom fighter while entering service would not be able to enjoy job extension facility. The five officials had not declared themselves as freedom fighters while entering their jobs. Against this backdrop, the anti-corruption watchdog has recommended legal action against the officials who adopted unfair means to collect the papers. Sources said the number of certificates, given without the decision of National Freedom Fighter Council, is approximately 45,000. Names of these FFs were not been included in the list of Indian authority and Muktibarta as FF. It was learnt that of the FFs, who are receiving allowance of the government, have to give assurance during taking allowance that they will return money if their certificates prove fake Government will also give chance of collecting FF certificate to those who have not collected certificate yet despite being true FFs. After assuming power in 2009, the Awami League government decided to extend service tenure of officials, who posses FF certificates, for one year and also decided to give the facilities to their children. Many became enthusiastic to collect FF certificates in last years considering benefits and till now many are trying to manage certificates. It was learnt that a total of 11,150 persons of various professions have collected FF certificates in the last five and half a year. The papers provided by India after independence contains list of 69,833 trained FFs. The list of Mutijoddha Command Council, made in 1998, enlisted 1, 54,000 FFs. As per the database of Liberation War Affairs Ministry, the number of FFs are 2, 30,000. Liberation War Affairs Minister Mozammel Haque said that the scrutinizing of data of FFs will be completed within December 16 and the final list will be published within March 26 in 2015.