Townspeople 'free' municipal land from grabbers in Dinajpur
Hundreds of townspeople yesterday 'freed' the waste dumping land of the municipality from a group of influential land grabbers yesterday.
As the grabbers occupied the land for three days, Md Jahangir Alam, BNP backed mayor of Dinajpur municipality called an emergency public meeting here at Lokbhaban on Sunday afternoon.
Chaired by mayor himself, the meeting decided to retake the land within Monday morning as all the townspeople vowed to help him in this regard.
The speakers at the meeting slated Bunu Biswas, headmaster of Jubilee High School for grabbing the municipal land and using another teacher Md Akram Hossain for 'managing' local journalists of national dailies on Friday morning.
They also urged the deputy commissioner to look into the incident.
Vowing not to spare an inch of the land, hundreds of residents gathered in front of Dinajpur municipality yesterday to free the waste dumping land.
At around 11:00am, a silent procession with garbage trucks led by the mayor marched towards the grabbed land at Rajrampur village. About 800 people from all walks of life and a few commissioners participated in the procession.
Moments after the procession reached the spot, angry protesters removed the signboards from the land and bamboo made fences erected by the land grabbers. Later the municipal garbage trucks entered the area and dumped the wastes. The angry residents also dismantled the structures built on the land.
Earlier on Thursday night, a group of influential people of the town grabbed at least 7.6 acres land of Dinajpur municipality and hung four signboards with separate names there.
The next day, the land grabbers and their hired goons resisted municipal staff and turned away the garbage vehicles.
The hired goons also threatened them of dire consequences if they come again for dumping wastes.
The land at Rajarampur village under Sadar upazila is around 4 km away from the municipal town.
The mayor said that the 8.6 acres of land was allocated to Dinajpur municipality in 1963 for dumping wastes of the town. Later in 2002, one acre of land was donated to Dinajpur City College for building its complex near the land.
Md Golam Nabi, sanitary inspector of the municipality filed a case with Dinajpur police station accusing three people of land grabbing.
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