Bakkhali river grabbing: ACC serves notice to local Awami League, BNP, Jamaat leaders

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has started investigating illegal grabbing of the Bakkhali River, around seven months after The Daily Star ran a special report on encroachment of the river.

An investigative team led by Sharif Ahmed, deputy assistant director of ACC Chattogram office-2, served notices to the alleged grabbers of Bakkhali River, a key river in Cox's Bazar.

Primarily, the notice was served to 20 people including Mujibor Rahman, mayor of Cox's Bazar municipality and general secretary of Cox Bazar district Awami League, its organising secretary Masudul Haque Rashed, former Jamat-e-Islami leader Jahangir Kashem, and Cox's Bazar municipality unit BNP president Rafiqul Huda Chowdhury.

Sharif Ahmed, deputy assistant of ACC's Chattogram divisional office, told The Daily Star that they have started investigating the grabbing of Bakkhali River.

"We served notices to 20 people primarily asking them to attend the ACC office over the issue of grabbing of the river," he said.

On January 27, The Daily Star ran a report on the river encroachment tiled Cox's Bazar's Bakkhali river: Grabbed by 'guardian'. The following day, the daily also published an editorial titled Slow death of the Bakkhali River.