Campaign continues
Campaign continues
The local administration in Chittagong, some businesspeople and public representatives have apparently launched a campaign against the Korean Export Processing Zone to create grounds for the government to take back the land allocated for the KEPZ.
They are accusing KEPZ officials of not allowing villagers to bury the dead in graveyards and use its walkways.
Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, state minister for land and lawmaker from the area, is categorically saying that part of the KEPZ land would be taken back as the KEPZ has failed to develop the land in the last 16 years.
The Chittagong DC is backing the state minister with sweeping comments against the KEPZ authorities.
The local body chairmen and members are working to prove that the position of state minister and local administration was correct.
Some leading businessmen as well as politicians of ruling Awami League and BNP are fuelling the situation from behind the scene in the hope of getting plots once the government takes back part of the KEPZ land, sources said.
Former Chittagong mayor and city AL president ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury at a public meeting on September 2 said some 200 factories could be set up on KEPZ land.
But the authorities were busy making casino and golf course, he said and vowed to foil such attempts.
A week after joining, DC Mesbah Uddin of Chittagong told a meeting on law and order on August 13 that only two-and-a-half factories were built in the KEPZ. He said should be given such vast land.
Mesbah also claimed the prime minister was annoyed with the KEPZ.
The DC, carrying on the anti-KEPZ stance of his predecessor, told The Daily Star recently, “The government is a little unhappy with the KEPZ as it failed to develop the area in 16 years.”
“I have learnt that locals cannot use the graveyards and bury the dead there,” he said, claiming that he had unofficially visited the KEPZ twice and found just one factory running.
There are a number of designated graveyards on the KEPZ land. But many dead were buried on fresh land at the site.
“Whenever we ask them not to bury their dead on new land, locals attack us with sticks and sharp weapons,” said Muktadir Islam, manager (security) of KEPZ.
During a recent visit to the KEPZ set up on 2,492 acres of land, The Daily Star reporters found graves on fresh land inside its area. There was no sign of the KEPZ developing the land near the graves.
But it was seen locals had uprooted several boundary pillars of the graveyards and set up those well inside the KEPZ area to make that land look like a new graveyard. They were also cutting hills and taking away sand from the KEPZ land.
The authorities have filed at least a dozen cases with Karnaphuli Police Station this year alone against the burying of the dead on their land.
Hardly any day passes without any untoward incident centring the KEPZ. Theft, snatching, illegal intrusion, vandalising KEPZ vehicles and even kidnapping its employees have been common occurrences.
A bloody clash took place on August 6 over the burial of a dead. Locals filed a murder case with the police accusing Muktadir and KEPZ Managing Director Mohammad Hasan Nasir.
As many as 39 complaints, cases and general diaries (GD) were filed with the police in connection with forcibly burying the dead, unauthorised intrusion and theft of sand.
Boirag Union Parishad Chairman Nawab Ali, once a worker of the KEPZ and now a contractor, is at the centre of fomenting trouble. He is directly instigating locals against the KEPZ over burial, walkways and a playground. Boirag's vice-chairman Badoni Member and Uthan Union Parishad Chairman Didarul Alam are also blamed for the situation.
Denying the allegation, Nawab blames the EPZ authorities for not allowing locals to bury the dead in the graveyards. “The KEPZ claims that the graveyards are under its jurisdiction and that the villagers should not have access to those,” said Nawab, a former employee of the KEPZ.
The KEPZ authorities said they had filed a dozen complaints with the DC office asking the latter to mark the graveyard.
The DC said a meeting between the KEPZ and locals would be convened soon to solve the problems.