Members of 24 farm families have protested a preliminary move to acquire triple-crop land at Haripur village, Burichang upazila, Cumilla, for a technical school and college. At a press conference at the Burichang press club on Sunday, 25 October, they said acquisition would strip the families of their only livelihood and leave them landless, and said they were prepared to give their lives to save the land.
Villager Mohammad Robiul Hasan read their written statement. The land picked so far is entirely triple-crop, they said; many poor families in the area live on the several harvests it gives each year and pay for their children's schooling from it. Most of the owners are poor: some drive autorickshaws or rickshaws, others work at ordinary jobs.
The families fear that losing the land would end their farming and cut their income, making it hard to meet basic needs such as food, medical care and their children's education; all 24 families risk becoming landless and homeless.
They propose building the institution on fallow and uncultivated land in the area instead, so that the college can be built while the farm families keep their livelihoods and homesteads. They also allege that a group deliberately chose this land.
Seeking the prime minister's intervention to reconsider the acquisition, they sent memoranda to the prime minister, the local MP, the Cumilla deputy commissioner, the land acquisition officer, the Burichang upazila nirbahi officer, the assistant commissioner (land) and the officer in charge of the police station. The report carries no response from the authorities.
Reported by Dainik Bangla.
Photo: Kangshanagar village, Burichang, Somunsadak / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Dainik Bangla
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