Encroachers injure 3 forest officials in Ratargul swamp forest
Encroachers in Ratargul swamp forest yesterday attacked and injured three officials of the forest department.
The officials came under attack around 11:00am when they went there to plant trees in Maheskher area of the forest located in Gowainghat upazila of Sylhet.
One of the injured, Saad Uddin, 48, range officer of Sylhet Forest Division, remains in a critical condition at Neurology department of Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital, said RSM Munirul Islam, divisional forest officer (DFO) of the district.
The other two injured foresters -- Akkas Ali, 32, and Shuvro Ahmed, 31 -- are also undergoing treatment at the same hospital.
The day before, the forest officials planted around 10,000 cane plants on 131 acres of nearly 200 acres of encroached forest land that the forest division reclaimed from encroachers last year.
As the encroachers uprooted all the plants the same day, the forest officials along with Gowainghat Upazila assistant commissioner (land), accompanied by a small police force, went there yesterday to exert control over the land and replant trees, DFO Munirul said.
The assistant commissioner (land), Ashiqur Rahman Chowdhury, said, “While we were informing the locals that the forest department is planting trees on recovered forest land only, a group of people suddenly attacked the forest officials.”
“Police had to fire blank shots at the attackers to bring the situation under control,” he added.
Forest officials said the local land grabbers have instigated the attack.
DFO Munirul said the department will take legal actions against the encroachers to recover all forest land and they were under the process of filing a case over yesterday's attack on its officials.
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