An attempt to fill in a 1.28-acre natural water body belonging to the railway in Chakbrindaban mouza beside Station Road in Bogura city, after its land class was changed by forgery, has finally been foiled by the administration. On Wednesday, Bogura City Corporation ran an eviction drive and demolished the illegal structures built on the pond, which is valued at Tk 63.5 crore. Demarcation of the site and removal of the fill soil began at the same time.

Lessees and traders reacted angrily during the drive. Saiful Islam, speaking for the traders, said 50 businessmen had taken part in the leasing of about 94 shatak of the land and had paid about Tk 1.09 crore in rent to the public treasury; they were astonished, he said, that the city corporation and the district administration had declared the site illegal after the railway authority itself had issued the licence.

Jahangir Alam, executive magistrate of the city corporation, said no one has the authority to change the class of a pond without the deputy commissioner's approval, that the papers submitted by the lessees had been proved forged and fake, and that no permission for any structure had been obtained from the city corporation. Rajibuzzaman, the railway's kanungo, confirmed that the RS khatian records the land as a pond and that it was leased on that basis; a later application to convert it to 'vita', or homestead land, was rejected by the district administration.

Samakal's inquiries found that the scheme to put the public water body to commercial use began in 2023, after it was taken on an agricultural lease. Using fake documents, the pond's class was changed to 'vita' and a process was set in motion to build a multi-storey market and other structures. An attempt to fill the site with sand was stopped by local residents. A district administration investigation then established that the land is a natural water body, and the class-change application was cancelled.

M R Islam Swadhin, administrator of the city corporation, who was present at the drive, said the town had grown without any large water body from which the fire service could draw emergency water, and that the recovered pond would play a major part in firefighting and in keeping the environmental balance. It will be re-excavated quickly and restored to its former state, he said, and there is a plan to develop the 1-acre-28-shatak water body into an attractive lake and recreation ground for the town's residents.

The Bogura case shows how a public pond taken on an agricultural lease was nearly turned into commercial buildings on forged papers, and how it was stopped: by the district administration's finding that the land is a natural water body. The story was reported by Samakal's northern region staff reporter.

Source: Samakal