Rivers in Sylhet
The partition of British India took place in 1947 on the understanding between The Indian Congress and The Muslim League that the province of Punjab and Bengal would be bifurcated based on the religion based concentration of the people.
The then district of Sylhet of the then Assam province was an exception as a referendum was to be held to determine the option of the people. The referendum gave the verdict to join Pakistan. The referendum was based on one simple option "either/ or" and there was no way to get the verdict to find any other option. But curiously the Chief of Boundary Commission, Mr. Redcliff, unilaterally ,apparently with permission from the Governor General, dissected the then biggest subdivision Karimganj mentioning the river Kushiyara and gave away the biggest portion of the Karimgonj subdivision and a small area now Zokiganj upazila was left for the then Sylhet district to be a part of East Pakistan . Late Mr. Hamidul Haque Choudhury was in charge of looking after this matter but nothing could be done against the influence exerted by the Congress.
I was a student of class-VIII of the Karimgonj Govt High School and had to cross the border and get admitted in a hurriedly erected high school and a hostel at Zakigonj with bamboo and tin structure which enabled me and others to appear in Matriculation Exams in 1949.
My village home is at Ballah on the bank of river Surma. I had seen our family elephants crossing river Surma from north into our village at a river point just west of old Kaliganj Bazar with a few inches dry at their back. This means the water in winter was at least 7 to 8 feet deep. Recently, people in our villages have seen Indian border guards crossing that point on foot with the water hardly two feet deep. Our govt officials or the media people may visit the places during winter to see and take photographs of the siltation that has taken place in the upper side (east) and lower side (west) of the river to present a report to Indian authorities to share the costs of dredging in future and also to stop encroachments. Moreover, it has been reported by our people in the villages that India has constructed small dams and other obstacles in the tributaries of the Surma and this may be another reason for less water coming down into our areas.
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