I am writing this letter in response to Syed Badrul Ahsan's article titled “Metro rail and the public interest." I am hoping that it will reach the editor and the writer. Though Mr. Badrul Ahsan wrote a big article on the issue, it looked as if he is not actually aware of what the air force's opinion is on this issue.
The writer time and again mentioned the “security” concerns of air force and army (I don't know from where he got the idea of the involvement of the army in it!) about this metro rail project.
Actually, it is not. It was always about the flight operational worthiness of an operational airport, not about the security of the said forces. If it was not important, then why was the air force asked?
The government could just have gone for the project through without asking it. Or did we just want to take its opinion in cognisance only if it was a 'yes, no objection' to the project! The writer must have known that Tejgaon Airport is not an air force facility, it's a civil aviation property and the air force uses a part of it only.
The writer seemed very frantic about the air force's stand, rather than caring about the JS complex. It is not expected from a learned brain to address a late president as a “slain general”. To everyone's knowledge, he was a president, not a general, when he died.
However, I think the prime minister has made the right move to take the objections on the operability of Tejgaon Airport into cognisance.