School kids put together broken parts of a pillar of the main Shaheed Minar in Palashbari union under Nilphamari Sadar upazila on Monday to make it appear like its original shape. Criminals on Sunday night damaged the memorial dedicated to the martyrs of 1952 Language Movement. PHOTO: STAR

Miscreants damaged the main Shaheed Minar of Polashbari union under Nilphamari Sadar upazila beside Nilphamari-Domar road on Sunday night, hours before Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla New Year.
Locals found one of the three pillars of the Shaheed Minar broken as they gathered at the field adjoining the Shaheed Minar to celebrate Pahela Baishakh on Monday morning.
Locals including teachers and students were shocked to see the Shaheed Minar damaged when they gathered on the school premises to attend a function on Pahela Baishakh, said Subash Chandra Roy, headmaster of New Model Pre-Cadet School, standing beside the Shaheed Minar.
“A vested quarter belonging to anti-liberation forces torched and looted houses of local Hindus in December last year. We suspect the same forces, which are opposed to Bangladeshi culture and heritage, damaged the Shaheed Minar just before the joyous day of Pahela Baishakh,” said Tapon Kumar Roy, chairman of Polashbari union parishad, also district unit president of Bangladesh Workers Party.
A land grabbers' syndicate attached with fundamentalist forces is active to occupy Hindus' land in the area, said Anisuzzaman Rumi, principal of Polashbari Degree College.
The syndicate is trying to occupy the khas land, formerly owned by a Hindu, on the premises of the Shaheed Minar.
Visiting the Shaheed Minar on Monday noon, this correspondent saw a few school kids putting pieces of the broken pillar of the Shaheed Minar to make it appear like its original shape.