<i>No more conflict, clash</i>

PLEDGE FOR PEACE: Villagers from Raghobdair and Moghi unions in Magura Sadar upazila queue up to submit their sharp weapons to police.Photo: STAR

With a vow to maintaining peace and harmony, Magura villagers have deposited to police their sharp weapons they used for years in clashes for establishing supremacy in their respective areas.
People of villages under Raghobdair and Moghi unions in Magura Sadar upazila made the honest gesture in two phasesyesterday and on November 12-- in presence of police superintendent, additional police superintendent and local elite. They surrendered 763 lethal weapons including 280 pieces of spear, 100 pieces of shorki (one kind of sharp weapon) and 173 billhooks.
“We have taken the initiative to recover sharp weapons from people so that they can live in peace and be involved in constructive activities”, Magura Police Superintendent Mohammad Muslim (Mohammad Muslim) told The Daily Star yesterday.
People in most villages in Magura are divided into two or three groups under the leadership of local influentials. Innocent villagers have no option but to be involved with any of them.
They clash with lethal weapons over disputed land, establishment of supremacy or any other trifle killing and injuring huge people, according to police and people of different villages.
According to police, hospital records and newspaper reports, at least 116 people were killed and several thousand critically injured in clashes among rival villagers at different places in four upazilas of the district in last several years.
Talking to this correspondent Saifur Rahman of Raghobdair village said, “We have deposited all of our sharp weapons to police as we are no more interested in clash which took the life of my father Bodiur Rahman in 1983”.
Additional Police Superinten-dent (ASP) Abdur Razzak however told this correspondent that sharp weapons would be collected in all the 36 unions to improve law and order.