JP leader's market on railway land

The president of Saidpur municipality unit of Jaitya Party in the district is illegally building a multi-storied market on railway land at the railway market in the municipality, ignoring the written directive of West Zone of Bangladesh Railway (BR) to stop construction.

Although the railway estate department filed two cases to stop the illegal construction and free the land from the influential leader's occupation, police are yet to take any visible step in this regard.

On a visit to the site yesterday, it was found that construction of 40 shops on the first  floor was going on in full swing as the market is designed to be built up to the fifth floor.

A few of the completed shops on the ground floor have been sold and the rest have been rented at high rate.

Saidpur Sub-Assistant Settlement Officer (field kanungo) of BR Monwar Hossain said Joinal Abedin took lease of 10 decimals of land from the railway around 30 years ago with lease money of Tk 10,000 to be paid per year for lease renewal.

“But, after taking lease of the land, which is now worth around Tk 10 crore, he neither deposited the lease money nor renewed the lease contract. The lease has already been cancelled automatically, as per railway rules,” said Monwar.

“To stop illegal construction by Joinal on our land, I filed a case against him with Saidpur Police Station on August 14,” he added.

Senior Sub-Assistant Engineer Tauhidul Islam of the railway department said he had filed a case on January 11 with the same police station to free the land from Joinal's occupation.

Joinal claimed that he had legally taken lease of the railway land.

"A case is running in the High Court, between the railway and Saidpur municipality over the railway's landed property in the municipality area, and so, I am confused about where to go to regularise the lease.

“I know constructing a market on railway land is illegal, but hundreds of such multistoried buildings are being built elsewhere on railway land in Saidpur. If people behind such construction aren't accused then why should I be?” he said.

“We have filed cases against Joinal but police are still inactive in addressing our complaint. We will soon launch a drive with law enforcement agencies to evict him from our land,” said Younus Ali, divisional estate officer of BR in Pakshi under West Zone

Saidpur Police Station Officer-in-Charge Shahjahan Pasha said Joinal is an identified land grabber as there are a number of cases against him over land dispute.

“We would like to provide all-out cooperation to the railway authorities if they launch eviction drives,” he added.