CBA leaders get gala reception

Twenty-five microbuses, 12 private cars and a bus carried the newly elected CBA leaders of Bangladesh Gas Field and their families to a highly sensitive area of Bakhrabad Gas Field (BGF) for a feast on Friday night.
The area is generally offlimits to the public on security grounds.
A few hundred local people joined the eight hundred CBA leaders and members at the grand feast and cultural programme held at a staggering cost of Tk 10 lakh -- allegedly collected as subscription from the gas field workers.
The event, held at the state-run gas field at Muradnagar in Comilla, was organised by local CBA leaders to accord a reception to the newly elected central CBA leaders.
The CBA leaders took up their new posts, in style, hoodwinking the risks involved.
The programme was held at the Key Point Installation (KPI)-1 area, which is a high risk zone of a gas field that is offlimits to general people. The place was however left totally insecure when locals thronged the area on Friday night to join the celebrations.
Locals said that the food for the programme was also cooked at that site which has inflammable deposits.
The event comes at a time when there is renewed threat of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh activities in the country as well.
Many locals have raised questions how such a vulnerable and sensitive area of a state gas field, categorised as a KPI zone, could be rendered so insecure for such a public gathering of no importance.
Deputy General Manager (DGM) Md Shahjahan of the field himself attended the programme as chief guest while Md Matiur Rahman, the DGM in charge of the security of the field was a special guest. Md Shahjahan said that he did not wish to attend the event but was forced to do so.
Other CBA leaders from Dhaka, Brahmanbaria Titas Gas Field, Habiganj Gas Field and Narsingdi Gas Field also joined the programme. Md Jahangir Alam Sarkar, general secretary of AL Comilla (North) district committee and Md Toufiq Mir, Jahapur UP Chairman and local BNP leaders were other noted guests.
The newly elected President of BGF's central CBA Md Shah Alam and General Secretary Mamun Nazir said they were pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the reception accorded to them by local leaders.
Shah Alam claimed that the organisers had collected the money from amongst themselves for the event.
A BGF official, requesting anonymity, however claimed said that the Tk 10 lakh spent on the programme had been collected from among the 54 staff of the gas field as well as workers of other gas fields.
Though a staff earns a meagre monthly salary of around six to seven thousand taka only, they each had to pay Tk 5-10 thousand under pressure from CBA leaders, he claimed.
Md Nurul Islam, Managing Director of the BGF told this correspondent that the CBA leaders arranged the reception on their own and the two DGM's of the field, Md Shahjahan and Matiur Rahman participated in the programme to ensure the security.
The UNO Zakir Hossain of Muradnagar and Thana Additional Officer Md Mainuddin told this correspondent they could have arranged for security at the venue had they been asked for it.
They were not invited to the programme.