Satkhira’s Shyamnagar Upazila Sadar Nakipur Toha (Raw) Bazar site construction work is going on 24 hours a day from Friday morning. Small traders in the raw market have complained that more than a hundred people are constructing these facilities in collaboration with the administration under the umbrella of locally influential quarters.Advertising
Permanent and temporary traders staged a sit-in at around 11am on Saturday in protest of illegal leasing of Toha Bazar land to non-traders. The human chain said that the illegally given lease should be canceled. If small traders can’t do business, they will sit on the road. Many will lose their address and become destitute. Vice Chairman of Upazila Parishad Abu Saeed, social worker Mahbub Elahi, businessman Abdur Rahman, Akhter Hossain and others spoke during the human chain under the chairmanship of heroic freedom fighter Haruna Rashid.
According to the office of the Assistant Commissioner (Land) in Shyamnagar, 70 per cent of the land in Toha Bazar. Of this, 36.36 percent of the abandoned land has been settled in 2016.
Going around one o’clock yesterday, it was seen that the shed built in Toha Bazar has been vandalized. The settlers are busy building houses with hundreds of masons.
Banamali Mandal, a trader in Nakipur Raw Market, said the market has been sitting here for almost four decades. The local government department built sheds for traders in the raw market at a cost of about half a crore rupees. He alleged that recently an influential quarter started a conspiracy to occupy Toha Bazar. By showing that the market has been abandoned, the people concerned, in collaboration with the administration, have taken the place of this market in their favor.* The market has been sitting here for almost four decades. * The local government department was constructing sheds for traders in the raw market.
Banamali Mandal further complained that the settlement was given to Toha Bazar in the name of different people by misleading the administration officials.
Nawab Hossain said that although many people understood the occupation, they did not get it. Saiful Islam said he had been allotted a piece of land not in his own name but in the name of his father Abdul Latif.
Local journalist Akbar Kabir said they did not occupy any land. He is constructing houses with land lease in due process.
In this regard, the Assistant Commissioner (Land) said. Shahidullah said he had handed over the land to the lessees on the instructions of the High Court and the deputy commissioner. Claiming that the land did not belong to Toha Bazar, he said the government land was abandoned. So the lease has been given. In response to a question, he said that he did not do the verification and selection. So he does not know who is a businessman and who is not.
Humayun Kabir, a senior lawyer in the High Court, told Prothom Alo on his mobile phone that the High Court had ruled that the matter should be settled within 30 working days. No one was asked to explain. It will be illegal to give land to anyone on the basis of that verdict.