Memorandum submitted to Chattogram City Corporation to turn Jatindra Mohan’s house into museum

Rana Dasgupta, a prosecutor of International Crimes Tribunal, today submitted a memorandum to the administrator of Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) urging the government for necessary steps to turn the house of Deshbandhu Jatindra Mohan Sengupta into a museum to preserve the memory of anti-British movement heroes.

Poet and Journalist Abul Momen was with him, among others, at that time, said Rana.

"We submitted the memorandum to the CCC Administrator Khorshed Alam Sujan seeking his cooperation so that government takes necessary steps to turn the house into a museum as per the decision taken by Ministry of Cultural Affairs on July 9, 2018 and to declare the house and surroundings as heritage site as per Antiquities Act and Article 24 of the Constitution," he said.

Rana, also general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad, said the CCC administrator expressed his solidarity with the demand and assured all-out cooperation, adding, "He said he would send a demi-official letter to the government regarding this tomorrow."

The Daily Star talked to Farhad Chowdhury, son of M Farid Chowdhury, who went to demolish the house on Monday obtaining a court order.

"We have got the court order over ownership of the land and the court ordered the concerned government officials and police to provide us the possession. We went there to take possession after a long legal battle," he said.

Farhad said his father, who is ill now, had an agreement with Milan Sen, successor of the property, to buy the land in 1980 but Milan was delaying in giving registration and so his father filed a case with the court in 2005 to get ownership.

"We got the decree from the court in 2009 in which the court ordered Milan to give us registration documents but Milan still did not do it and so we filed a case for ownership paper from the court and got decree in 2018," he said, adding, "Then we prayed to the court for possession and got decree in December 2020."

"My father was a freedom fighter. We are a reputed family from Chandnaish upazila in Chattogram," he said.

Rana Dasgupta said the entire property of Jatra Mohan Sen and his son Jatindra Mohan Sengupta was made vested property which means the Chattogram District Administration is the custodian of the property. It was leased to a person who has been running a school there.

Farhad filed a case with the court "on the basis of fake documents" but kept both the government and school management in the dark, said Rana.

Denying any such allegation, Farhad said all their documents were "genuine".

"As we are now the owner of the property, we will have to be given compensation if government wants to build a museum there," he said.