Jessore police on the prowl

The police in Jessore has allegedly grabbed privately owned and government land at three key points in the economically vibrant district town.

The main perpetrator of the land grabbing activities is the superintendent of police (SP), Anisur Rahman, who joined the current position in 2014, said local people and the sufferers.

They alleged that those who protested at those activities of the police were implicated in false cases.

Jessore district parishad chairman Saifuzzaman is knowledgeable of the matter. “What the people are saying is not false,” he told Prothom Alo.

Private property

 One of the largest bungalows of the SPs’ in Bangladesh is that of the Jessore SP, according to the police.

Its boundary wall was allegedly constructed again recently grabbing the land of a Jessore BAS Shaheen College teacher named Kazi Lutfunnesa. She has 27.5 decimal land beside the bungalow.

On 18 February, Lutfunnesa saw labourers erecting the boundary wall encroaching on the Lutfunnesa’s land in the airport road area. Her parents’ graves are in the encroached land.

She said she was born and brought up here. She currently resides with family members in another part of the town.

Lutfunnesa is scared about lodging any formal complaint against the police, lest her adolescent son is implicated in any case.

“The SP was my student. I tried to talk to him many a time but he didn’t talk to me. I tried through others but to no avail. Later, I filed a complaint with the deputy commissioner's office."

When contacted, additional deputy commissioner (revenue) of Jessore Reza E Rabbi told Prothom Alo, “We can evict any person for grabbing government land. But, in this case, we have nothing to do as that’s a private property. We have informed the police about it.”

 Government property

The police lines is within a short distance of the SP’s bungalow. The land in front of the police lines belongs to the district parishad but the SP ordered others to build shops on small plots of that piece of land. There are allegations that money was taken from many people in the name of allocating shops to their name.

Jessore district parishad chairman Saifuzzaman said, “The land belongs to the district parishad but the police started building shops without talking to us. The construction work was stopped after a written complaint was lodged.”

But newly built walls are seen in front of the police lines.

In another case, graffiti on a wall beside the Garikhana road in the central part of the town attracts attention. It reads, “This property belongs to the police.”

Allegations have it that the law enforcement grabbed land in the area of the district town evicting 31 families and 10 shops on 8 February 2016, and took an initiative to allocate district parishad’s land for building shops following an order of SP Anisur Rahman.

However, reports by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and district commission said the government owns the land.

The district administration discarded the police claim about ownership of the land. The land was not leased out or allocated to the police. The police was also asked to remove all their establishments and signposts.

The NHRC report also criticised the police for evicting those people.

Around 100 people took the land on lease from the deputy commissioner and were staying with their families or doing business in the area. Some of the families had taken the land on lease in 1910.

But the police did not change its position. Rather, those who protested at the incident were sued.

A local human rights organisation’s director Binoy Krishna Mullick had a shop in the area. He organised a press conference against the eviction.

“A case was filed against my son within six hours of the press conference,” Binoy told Prothom Alo.

Later, his son was arrested. He organised another press conference protesting at the arrest. This time a case was filed against Binoy. Proceedings of these two cases are in progress. Prothom Alo and local newspapers published several reports on these incidents.

SP Anisur Rahman declined to comment when Prothom Alo tried to take his version on the allegations.

Khulna range deputy inspector general (DIG) of police Didarul Alam said, “I am not aware of the incident.”

* This report, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten by Shameem Reza.