A madrasa teacher of modest means, Anas Madani, son of Hefazat chief Shafi, has recently started the construction of at least five multi-storied buildings on a total of 20 kathas of land at different places in the upazila, according to sources.
The market price of each katha of land in the area is said to be Tk40 lakh.
Anas is a teacher at the Al Jamaitul Ahlia Darul Uloom Moinul Islam madrasa in Hathazari upazila in Chittagong and the publicity secretary of Hefazat-e-Islam, the Qawmi madrasa-based Islamist outfit that emerged strongly last year by staging several showdowns in the capital and placing a 13-point demand to the government.
Madrasa sources said Anas’s monthly salary – his only known source of income – could be Tk15,000-Tk16,000 at best.
A labourer, who works at the construction site of one of those buildings in the Eidgah area in the upazila, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Hujur [Anas] comes here regularly and inspects the construction... His friend Ahsan Ullah had been overseeing the construction work on his behalf.”
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Anas claimed that he owned only one of the buildings on a 3.5 katha land that was owned by his father Shafi.
The rest of the land and the buildings, he claimed, were owned by his friends Ahsan Ullah, Jashim Uddin, Farid and Nezam Uddin.
Local residents and Hathazari madrasa sources said Ahsan is known as a land broker in the area, the other three were his “bodyguards” and there was no chance that they could own so much of land in the area because they did not have any known source of income.
They also said other than the 3.5 kathas of land that his father owned, Anas purchased the remaining 16.5 kathas of land in the name of his “friends” after May 5 last year.
The Dhaka Tribune correspondent tried to dig out information about the owners of the lands from the local land office but could not get any conclusive information.
Local residents said the different areas that the 20 kathas of land was located in, were very much inside the Hefazat’s power zone and hence knowing anything in detail about the purchase and ownership of the land was next to impossible.
This correspondent, who has recently visited the areas several times, had experienced visible threats from the followers of Anas.
“My father’s disciples from home and abroad donate huge amounts of money to him. I have been erecting two buildings in the Eidgah area and Chandraghona with that money,” Anas told the Dhaka Tribune.
Asked why he was spending Hefazat’s money, Anas said the money was actually donated by disciples to his father, not to the organisation.
However, seeking anonymity, a nayeb-e-ameer of Hefazat told the Dhaka Tribune that Anas had been misappropriating the donations that the followers of the organisation donated for helping the “victims” of Shapla Chattar.
Some of the top leaders of the Islamist outfit told the Dhaka Tribune that Anas had recently drawn very close to his father Shah Ahmed Shafi, chief of Hefazat.
After the skirmishes between Hefazat men and law enforcers at the Shapla Chattar in Motijheel in the capital on May 5 last year, Shafi, in his 80s, had reportedly gone through a trauma and had since been depending heavily on his son for the outfit’s operational matters.
Hefazat leaders said Aanas had taken advantage of the favour from his father and had become more influential than the other top leaders of the Islamist outfit.
They had been unhappy with the way Anas had been managing the organisation’s funds but had not dared say anything because of his influences over their supreme leader.
The Islamist outfit has been claiming since the May 5 incident that hundreds were killed in a clash with police but had never managed to come up with credible proof.
“None of the leaders of the organisation knows what has happened to the money collected from the supporters and well-wishers,” said a joint secretary of the outfit.
He alleged that most the money had gone to Anas, who had been using it for getting wealthier.
The joint secretary also alleged that Anas had been taking huge sums of money from both the ruling Awami League and the BNP.
He said Hefazat was supposed to join the BNP’s “March for Democracy” on December 29 last year; but Anas, after having accepted money from the ruling party, managed his father Shafi to refrain from joining the programme.
There are also allegations that Anas has taken money from the BNP to mobilise his people for the march programme.
Azizul Hoque Islamabadi, organising secretary of Hefazat, said: “Constructing buildings with the money that hujur [Shafi] gets from his disciples is a not a big thing. His followers visit him every Thursday and Friday and give him money.”
He also said: “Look at some of the ‘pirs’ around the country and how much wealth they own... If he wanted to spend all the donation for his own, he could have put up a building every month.”