Hotel, house vandalised in Ctg over land dispute

The residence of United Hotel owner Badiur Rahman vandalised during a clash between two groups following a dispute over the land. Photo: Star

A hotel and two floors of the hotel owner's house were vandalised in an attack over a land dispute in the port city yesterday.
As many as 100 men of developer Mohammad Hossain, 50, and his partner Shamsul Alam Bhuiyan, 48, carried out the massive destruction at United Hotel and the house of Badiur Rahman at Nandan Kanon Lane for about three hours from 4:00am, said witnesses.
Three persons sustained bullet injuries as the residents of the house near Reazuddinbazar Tin Poler Matha opened fire on the attackers from Badiur's licenced double-barrel gun.
The injured, identified as Sarwar, Shukkur and Borhan, were undergoing treatment at Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
Police arrested six persons--Hossain, Shamsul, their aides Shahadat, Badsha Mia, Morshed and Alamgir-- and recovered a huge number of hammers, crowbars and the licenced gun after the incident that left 62 rooms of the hotel, seven rooms of the house and a car severely damaged.
Yesterday's violence was the consequence of Badiur not handing over the land that Hossain and Shamsul bought six years back, Hossain claimed.
Hossain, proprietor of Md Hossain Trade Developer, and his partner Shamsul, owner of Mohanagar Electric Shop at Shah Amanat Market, claimed to have purchased around 27.6 kathas of land from Badiur for Tk 4.40 crore in 2004 and paid Tk 3.79 crore by 2005 as per the agreement.
But Badiur is yet to hand over the land to them, they said.
“Badiur was dilly-dallying over handing over the land. So we took legal action and removed the top two floors of the hotel with the help of police,” said Shamsul and Hossain while talking to The Daily Star in the afternoon.
“We gave him [Badiur] time to vacate the building, but to our surprise he reconstructed the top floors,” they continued.
During the last Ramadan after a number of social arbitrations, Badiur promised to vacate the land after the festival.
Since then a few employees of the developer were staying in three rooms of the hotel, but Thursday evening, the hotel authorities beat them up and drove them out, which prompted them to go on the rampage, Hossain claimed.
However, Badiur's son Mostafa Kamal alleged that Hossain and Shamsul with the help of Ahmadul Haq Chowdhury alias Ahmadya, a Shibir man killed in a “shootout” with Rab in 2004, had made some documents and forced his father to sign on it.
“And now they claim they own the land with those documents,” he said.
While talking to journalists, Badiur alleged that police came to the spot long after they were informed about the incident.
Even the attackers ransacked the buildings in presence of the law enforcers, he said.
Officer-in-Charge of Chittagong Police Station Shakhawat Hossain refuted the claim.
The OC said the land dispute was the reason behind the attack.
“We can give details about the dispute after an investigation,” he said.