River grabbing goes on unabated in Jhenidah
A house built on the grabbed portion of Navaganga River in Jhenidah town, below, a man puts a signboard claiming ownership of a part of the riverbank. Photo: STAR
Most of the rivers in Jhenidah district, including Chitra, Navaganga, Buribhairab, Kumar, Kapatakkha and Gorai, see gradual shrinking as a section of unscrupulous people, mostly belonging to political parties, have continued grabbing land on riverbeds or banks for years. The river grabbers constructed houses or dug ponds on the riverbanks or riverbeds but the authorities hardly take any legal action against them, locals alleged. Rashed Shamser, vice chairman of Kaliganj upazila parishad and a leader of ruling Awami League, allegedly grabbed 220 decimals of land on Buribhairab River in the same upazila, “I dug a pond on the bank of the Buribhairab River about ten years ago but the local authorities have served me a notice to free the land. To this end, I have filed a case against the notice as the land was purchased earlier,” Rashed Shamser said. Many influential people are also leasing occupied riverbeds or banks to common people for lakhs of taka. When contacted, Pranab Kumar Chakrabarty, additional deputy commissioner of Jhenidah, said, “The district administration has started a drive to recover the rivers from grabbers and got back 20 ponds on the bank of Buribhairab River in last four days.” “We have served notice 97 grabbers in Jhenidah Sadar and 54 in Kaliganj upazila and the remaining grabbers will be served with notices to release the riverbank soon,” he said. Swapan Biswas, a ruling party activist, was arrested when he was grabbing a piece of land immediately after the eviction, sources said. This correspondent recently visited a number of illegally occupied sites on the bank of rivers Navaganga, Chitra and Buribhairab. Iltutmish, living in a house constructed on the bank of Navaganga river, said the allegation of river grabbing is not true as he constructed his house on a piece of purchased land. Wazed Ali, a resident of Ghoppara village, accused of grabbing land on the same river, said, “I did not know that the plot is a government land. Now, if the government wants it back, I will obey the order.” Locals said major portion of the bank of Chitra River in Kaliganj upazila have already been occupied.
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