Jubo Dal goons storm bank to drive out contractors

A group of armed cadres of the Jatiyatabadi Jubo Dal yesterday drove out contractors from the corporate branch of Janata Bank at gunpoint and threatened them with death during the sale of tender schedules for a Tk 1 crore re-dredging works of the Kobadak river.

Eyewitnesses said the gang stormed into the bank at about 1:30pm, half an hour before the sale of the schedules for 24 categories of work was to end. The Jubo Dal goons came straight from a top party leader's office adjacent to the bank. The cadres also asked the contractors not to lodge any police complaint.

The bank authorities in a letter to the Dredging Division of the Water Development Board, Khulna have expressed inability to sell tender schedules for security reason following the armed showdown by the cadres of ruling BNP's youth front.

Mohammad Nasim Mahmud, proprietor of Asray Trading, alleged that he could not purchase tender schedules as he like many others were driven out of the bank. A senior officer of the bank said financial transactions had to be suspended during the armed showdown by Jubo Dal cadres both in and outside the bank.