Landless agitate for rights

A procession was brought out in Pabna town yesterday marking the Land Rights Day on June 10. Pabna District Land Rights Day Celebration Committee organised the programme. PHOTO: STAR

Satkhira District Land Rights Day Observation Committee organised the procession and brought it out from Shaheed Abdur Razzak Park. The processionists paraded the main streets of the town and submitted a memorandum to Satkhira Deputy Commissioner (DC) containing their 26-point demand.

The demands include arrest and punishment to killers of Abul Hossain, a landless villager, compensation to victim's family and to other injured landless villagers, distribution of khas and shoal land among the landless, recovery of khas land from influential land grabbers and stoppage of harassment to Munda community by a Jamaat leader at Kashipur in Shyamnagar upazila.

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The processionists erected a barricade on the Satkhira-Jessore Road disrupting vehicular movement for about half an hour.

Later, a meeting was held in front of the DC office main gate where members of the law enforcement authorities prevented the processionists from entering the DC office.

Speakers condemned and protested death of landless villager Abul Hossain who was allegedly abducted and tortured to death by hired goons of local land grabbers on June 3.

They threatened a tougher agitation if the government failed to arrest and punish the killers immediately.

Calling to observe the Land Rights Day on June 10, they urged the political parties to incorporate the issue of the landless in their party manifesto to build a society free from inequality and discrimination.

They also urged the government to rehabilitate the landless evicted from their houses at Bairagirchak, Bosukhali, Chingrikhali, Gava, Shimulbaria and other areas recently.