DIGBOI, Sept 4 - Following the CID probe ordered by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal last Friday to investigate the alleged collection of illegal money from the drivers of oil tankers and the ongoing syndicate raj here at Digboi Golai-based AOD Marketing Terminal, a four-member CID team reached the site and conducted preliminary investigations on Monday.
The CID sleuths recorded the statements of the office bearers of Golai Association and collected various documents of the association from its temporary office erected near the entrance of the marketing terminal. Besides verifying the legal status of the association, the CID team on reaching the site found that youths of Golai Association (both males and females) were engaged in providing services to the needy drivers of the oil tankers in the form of �mandatory gadgets�.
Data and documents including copies of FIRs registered at case No 212 /18 and 213/18 pertaining to allegations and counter-allegations between the drivers-cum-members of the APMU and terminal workers-cum-members of Golai Association were also collected from the local police station.
�The investigating team had also recorded the statements of some of the drivers of oil tankers earlier in Tinsukia�, informed an APMU member of Tinsukia.
It may be reiterated that the APMU during the course of its indefinite agitation commencing from August 27 and till its withdrawal on August 29 evening had categorically alleged the involvement of local BJP MLA Suren Phukan in the alleged syndicate.
However, challenging the validity of the allegation levelled by the APMU, Phukan said here on Monday that he had urged the Chief Minister on Friday last for a CID probe to unearth the reality. According to him, the nasty affair of collecting money from the hundreds of drivers of the oil tankers each day was being carried out by a group in nexus under the leadership of Ranjan Chowdhury, the president of APMU, Upper Assam with the oil traders and smugglers earlier at the Tinsukia Terminal. �Now when he has failed to carry on the trade further after the shifting of terminal to Digboi, he has started bringing baseless allegations involving me to get mileage�, alleged Phukan.
Meanwhile, the CID sleuths could not record the statement of the APMU leader Ranjan Chowdhury who has been hospitalised at a private nursing home at Dibrugarh.
