Rajbari Stadium authorities, football players and locals formed a human chain in front of the Rajbari Press Club and staged a procession yesterday to save the land and the canal beside the stadium from local land grabbers.
“A few influential people in the area have illegally occupied the land that is actually owned by the stadium and are encroaching on the canal,” the protesters said.
Calling the land grabbers “evil,” the protesters held them responsible for destroying the canal by dumping waste in it and blocking the water flow.
They claimed that the construction of roads and culverts across the canal is blocking it up and the people living on its banks are suffering because of this.
‘’We have been organising various programmes to raise awareness among the grabbers to prevent their encroachment on the water bodies and to save nature from the environment pollution they are causing,” they said.
They condemned the municipality authorities’ “participation in the canal’s encroachment.”
“The authorities have allowed these destructive activities in the name of different types of public and private ‘development’ work,” they said.
“We demand the immediate recovery of the canal from the grabbers,” they added.
Among others, Ahmed Nizam from the Stadium Land Protecting Committee, Mohammad Ali Chowdhury, former municipal mayor, Khan Mohammad Jahurul Haque, president of Rajbari Press Club, Comrade Abul Kalam, Dr Sunil Kumar Biswas, Mohsin Uddin Batu and Awami League leader Ali Hossen Poni addressed the participants of the human chain.
Later, the protesters gave separate memorandums in this regard to the deputy commissioner and the police super of Rajbari.