Human Chain in Gaibandha

Villagers allege repression, bid to grab land

20 August 2009, 17:00 PM

Our Correspondent, Gaibandha

Locals form a human chain on Gobindaganj-Ghoraghat Road in Gaibandha district yesterday demanding action against extortionists and land grabbers at Nesarabad and Melakabad villages in Gobindaganj upazila. Photo: STAR

Hundreds of people including women and children formed a human chain in the district on Wednesday protesting alleged bid to grab land, repression and extortion in two villages under Katabari union in Gobindganj upazila. They brought out a procession and barricaded Gobindaganj-Ghoraghat Road for an hour creating a huge tailback. People of Nesarabad and Malekabad said during the partition of Bengal in 1947 over a hundred families migrated from India and took shelter as refugees in the two villages of Katabari union under Gobindagnaj upazila. All of them were retired personnel from British army. The then government ordered rehabilitation of those families as permanent settlers in the same villages. Accordingly, the deputy commissioner (DC) of Rangpur acquired 555 acres of fallow land at Katabari union under LA case No 146/1952-53. The settlers later set up residential structures, schools, madrasas, mosques and other social organisations in those two villages. But a few local influential people, backed by some ruling party men, are recently trying to grab the land of refugees. They even threatened to oust them from the refugee colony, the settlers said. The settlers earlier appealed several times to the upazila administration to take steps in this regard but to no effect, they said.