No one chopped down those 26 trees!

Twenty-six trees in Sylhet’s Shahi Eidgah area were felled for “development work” recently, although no authority has taken responsibility for it.

A part of Sylhet Shahi Eidgah was included in a road expansion and drainage development project of the city corporation, for which fewer than ten trees were supposed to be cut down.

However, 26 trees, mostly fruit and timber trees, were felled last Saturday and Sunday.

Locals protested on Sunday while the timber was being transported. While visiting the site, this correspondent found that only a few trees were in the expansion area but other trees were felled too.

Rajon Ahmed, a local, said, “These were old trees which did not need to be cut down for development purpose, but someone felled these for monetary gains without informing locals. We protested when the buyer arrived to carry the trees of the site.”

Seeking anonymity, some people of the area claimed that the local councilor and some members of the Eidgah management committee felled these trees in the name of development, while the caretaker of the management committee is abroad.

Rezaul Islam Raju, a contractor who was taking the trees off the site, said, “I bought only eight trees and don’t know who felled the others.” However, he denied to mention the name of the person he purchased the trees from.

Local councillor Rashed Ahmed of Sylhet City Corporation’s ward-17, said the Eidgah committee was informed by the city corporation that some trees needed to be felled for road expansion and drainage construction. But the corporation authorities denied the claim.

Contacted, Nur Azizur Rahman, chief executive engineer of Sylhet City Corporation, said, “There are rules on felling trees for development purpose and we didn’t send any letters or inform the committee about felling any trees. As far as we know, these trees were felled by the Eidgah management committee by their own decision.”

This correspondent could not contact the Eidgah Management Committee’s caretaker Jahir Bakhth as he is abroad.

Mostak Ahmed, a member of the committee, said, “The committee did not collectively decide to fell the trees, and usually this type of work is carried out through auction. This might have been someone’s personal decision to sell the trees to contractors.”

However, the committee yesterday evening issued a notice saying that the felled trees will be put up for auction tomorrow.

Abdul Karim Kim, general secretary of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (Bapa) in Sylhet, said, “It is unfortunate that people no longer care about trees. Whenever they want they are felling trees. This cannot go on.”

SM Sajjad Hossain, deputy conservator of Forests and Divisional Forest Officer of Sylhet, said, “There are strict rules that require informing and taking permission from the forest department before felling trees for any purpose, but no one took permission for felling trees at Shahi Eidgah. We will take legal action when they try to transport these felled trees without proper permission.”