Landless occupy lessee's land

Musclemen attack, injure SP as he visits spot

9 December 2009, 17:00 PM

Our Correspondent, Satkhira

A section of landless people have illegally occupied around 270 bighas of leased land at Norarchak in Debhata upazila, sparking tension among the local residents. The landless people and a committee comprising representatives of local government bodies and lessee of the government land are now at loggerheads after landless people occupied the leased land on November 15, sources said. The situation became tense as landless people wearing burial cloth offered Eid-ul-Azha prayers on the leased land on November 28 and vowed that they would not leave the land until their death. Through a press conference at Satkhira Press Club on December 2, local people including the representatives of local government bodies, freedom fighters and elites formed a committee styled 'Muktijoddha Janata Sangram Parishad' to evict the landless people from the leased land. They formed a 23-member committee with advocate Golam Mostafa as its convener and freedom fighter Mosharraf Hossain Mashu as member secretary. In his written statement, Mashu said Dr Abu Yusuf Abdullah, a Dhaka University teacher, took lease of the government khas land to cultivate shrimp in 2006 and set up a farm named Bengal Scientific Shrimp Culture Ltd. Mashu alleged that a group of people including Nazrul Islam, Sirajul Islam, Yad Ali, Golam Hossain and Amjad Hossain occupied the shrimp enclosure by using the banner of landless people. The so-called landless people have built over 150 makeshift huts on the leased land and looted fish, cash and other valuables worth Tk 65 lakh from there, he said. When contacted, Nazrul Islam, a leader of landless people, said, "We have occupied the khas land as the lessee violated the condition of the lease contact. We will not leave the land because we, the landless people, have rights to stay on the government's khas land." Meanwhile, a group of musclemen yesterday assaulted the superintendent of police in Satkhira during his visit to the spot. Witnesses said the musclemen went to Norarchak at around 5:00pm while the SP went there at around 6:30pm and asked police to drive away the musclemen. At this, Ali Hossain, Saju and other members of the gang hit SP Maniruzzaman in the head from behind while he was talking to some landless people, witnesses said. He is now receiving treatment at the Shakhipur Hospital. The injured SP or the officer-in-charge of Debhata Police Station could not be contacted despite repeated attempts. The musclemen earlier had burnt around 15 makeshift houses of landless people and exploded 25 cocktails leaving 25 people injured.