Residents storm Mymensingh power office over week-long outage and alleged bribery

Local residents in Mymensingh’s Ishwarganj municipality stormed the local Power Development Board (PDB) office on Thursday, vandalizing property and allegedly assaulting an official after enduring nearly a week of power outages.

The incident occurred at approximately 11:00 a.m. when a crowd of roughly 200 to 250 residents from Shimrail village gathered at the PDB office to protest the ongoing blackout. The protesters shattered glass fixtures, damaged electrical equipment, and broke office furniture before law enforcement arrived to restore order. The situation was eventually stabilized after officials promised to install a new transformer and restore electricity promptly.

Ishwarganj Police Station Officer-in-Charge Rabiul Azam confirmed the incident, stating that the area is currently calm.

The power crisis began on August 13 when a transformer serving Shimrail village failed, leaving thousands of residents without electricity. Local residents, including Sajeeb Mia, Nurul Haque, Atikul Islam, and Jahirul Islam, alleged that they had paid 50,000 taka to the PDB resident engineer under the impression that the funds would secure a replacement transformer. They expressed frustration that despite the payment, the electricity supply remained disrupted for seven days.

Indian President Droupadi Murmu Congratulates Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Assuming Presidency of Bangladesh

Read Article

Rezaul Karim, an assistant sub-engineer at the PDB who was reportedly injured during the altercation, denied the bribery allegations. While he acknowledged that linemen are often given incidental payments for maintenance work, he dismissed the claim that the 50,000 taka was demanded or collected for the transformer.

Residents claimed this is a recurring issue, noting that a transformer failed in the same village just one month ago. They alleged that the authorities provided an old, refurbished transformer at that time, which quickly malfunctioned again, preventing a permanent resolution to the power shortage.

Hamza Imam, the PDB resident engineer for Ishwarganj, said the matter regarding the damaged equipment in Shimrail village had been reported to higher authorities multiple times. He attributed the delay in repairs to a shortage of available transformers in the regional inventory.