Money flows down Rajshahi drain

People were lined up along the drain in front of the Railway Officers’ Mess building in Shiroil, Rajshahi, looking down into the black water. It was around 1:00pm, Saturday afternoon. There were around seven people down in the drain, plunging their hands into the filthy water, searching with full concentration. Initially it seemed like they were catching fish, but later it was learnt they were collecting money, currency notes floating in the water.

The water in the drain was flowing swiftly, from Shiroil towards Bhadra. The people in the drain were picking out 1000 taka notes, 500 taka notes, even 5 taka notes. Some papers and files were also floating in the water. Currency notes were slipping out from the files too. The papers were from the Rajshahi road transport group office.

Dipu, a 15-year-old painter, has collected quite a lot of money, including a 1000 taka note. When asked about it, he simply waved the 1000 taka note in the air and went back to searching in the murky depths of the drain.

Rickshaw-puller Alamgir Hossain (45) had been passing by with his rickshaw and heard about the 1000 taka notes floating down the drain. He said he did not get any 1000 taka note, but 100 taka and 500 taka notes. He was speaking while rifling through a bunch of wet papers.

Some of the people didn’t disclose exactly how much they found in the drain, for fear that the police may take it all away from them.

Officer-in-charge of Boalia model police station, Nibaran Chandra Barman said he had learnt that old papers of some office had been floating down the drain and there was some money with the papers too.

In the meantime, when asked about the matter, acting general secretary of the Rajshahi district road transport group, Matiur Huq, said there had been some old papers lying in their office for years which would no longer be needed. As they couldn’t arrange to have these burned, these were dumped into the drain. He said perhaps some money had been tucked away with the papers. There was nothing more to it.