Govt to scrap allocation of plots, flats
The government has decided to cancel the allocation of Rajuk plots given to war criminals during the last BNP-Jamaat tenure.
The Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) would issue a circular to this end within a very short time, said sources in the city development authority.
Housing and Public Works minister Mosharraf Hossain disclosed the Rajuk move while talking to reporters at his office in the secretariat yesterday.
"Allocation of plots for war criminals has been cancelled. Some of these war criminals, I will not mention names, gave them [the plots] to real estate developers, who are not at fault here,” he said.
He also said if any developer company made buildings on such plots, it would get their share. The rest would be confiscated by the government.
The government would review the matter if anyone purchased from the share of the war criminals. A decision on it would be taken later, he said.
Motiur Rahman Nizami, chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, a key ally of the then BNP-led coalition government, was first made the agriculture minister and then the industries minister.
Ali Ahsan Mojaheed, secretary general of Jamaat, was made a technocrat minister and given the charge of the social welfare ministry.
Both Nizami and Mojaheed, who were top leaders of Al-Badr, a notorious force mainly responsible for the intellectual killings at the fag end of the Liberation War, have been executed for war crimes.
Mojaheed was hanged in November 2015 while Nizami in this May.
During the BNP-Jamaat government, Nizami was awarded a five katha of plot on Road-18, Holding-60 at Banani for his “vital contribution to the state”, according to Rajuk sources.
Mojaheed received a five-katha plot at Sector-11, Road-10 at Uttra Model Town in March, 2006.
The Rajuk allotted the plot to Mojaheed under section 13/ka of Land Allocation Rules, 1969. According to the rules, a plot can be allotted to an eminent person, who has no accommodation in the capital, in recognition to his vital contribution to the state.
A source in Jamaat told The Daily Star yesterday that a developer company constructed two buildings on the plots given to the Jamaat leaders.
“They [Nizami and Mojaheed] have sold all the flats [in the buildings] except two flats where their family members are living,” added the source.
Meanwhile, Masood Sayedee, son of another convicted war criminal Delawar Hossain Sayedee, said his father got allotment of a Rajuk plot in the Purbachal project during his term as a lawmaker during 2001-2006.
He claimed that Sayedee, also a Nayeb-e-Ameer of Jamaat, paid Tk 1.5 or 2 lakh for the plot that time.
“We have no idea about the plot's condition. We don't even know its location or whether its allotment has been cancelled,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.
Asked about the government move, veteran war crimes trial campaigner Shahriar Kabir said, “It is better late than never.”
He, however, said the cancellation of government plots for war criminals was not enough.
“All the moveable and non-moveable properties of war criminals must be confiscated, and the assets should be given to the 1971 victims as compensation,” said Shahriar, who is also the acting president of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee.
Tureen Afroz, a prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal, welcomed the government move.
She, however, said all the books and CDs having statements and sermons of convicted war criminals must be banned too.
“Their views and ideologies are now being spread out through their books and CDs.” she told The Daily Star yesterday.
Tureen said the books of convicted Jamaat leaders, especially of Ghulam Azam, and CDs of Delawar Hossain Sayedee, are still available in markets.
Referring to the tribunal's verdict in Ghulam Azam's case, Tureen said the authorities must take measures so that the anti-liberation elements could not hold key positions in any government, non-government and socio-political organisations.
The ICT-1 in July 2013 verdict wrote: “In the interest of establishing a democratic as well as non-communal Bangladesh, we observe that no such anti-liberation people should be allowed to sit in the helm of Executives of the Government, social or political parties including government and non-government organisations.”
“We are of the opinion that the government may take necessary steps to that end for debarring those anti-liberation persons from holding the said superior posts in order to establish a democratic and non-communal country for which millions of people sacrificed their lives during the War of Liberation,” it said.
Comments