An influential quarter has gone all out to grab some land, which belongs to a temple, at Sadar upazila in Madaripur. They have set up a two-roomed pucca shop encroaching on the land of the Shirkhara Bazar Kali Temple. They are also sharing the temple land amongst themselves at will.
Temple authorities who protested the issue and took it up with the court are now being threatened with dire consequences – beatings and death.
Earlier, six people, including the temple’s president Bhanu Lal Sarlar, had filed a petition with the revenue deputy collector (RDC), asking him to protect the land from the clutches of land grabbers.
RDC Jahid Iqbal ordered the assistant commissioner (land) to demarcate the temple boundary.
Besides this, he ordered locally influential people Kabir Khandker and Khandker Hafez Ali to stop erecting any structures till the temple land demarcation was completed.
Kabir and Hafez, however, set up the shop defying the assistant land commissioner’s order.
There are 21 decimals of land under the “temple’s jurisdiction.” Located next to Shirkhara Bazar, the temple land has become quite valuable nowadays, drawing the attention of greedy people.
Earlier, the temple committee had gone to Shirkhara Union Parishad office to deposit the land tax, but they returned saying that the temple land was recorded as khas (state-owned), not as an endowed property.
Locals alleged that somebody might have intentionally recorded the land as khas.
Later, on February 6, the committee filed a case with Senior Assistant Judge’s Court showing the deputy commissioner, upazila nirbahi officer and assistant commissioner (land) as plaintiffs.
The court ordered that no structure be erected on the temple land unless the case was settled. Despite that, Kabir and Hafiz continued with the erecting of the shop.
Deputy Commissioner GSM Jafarullah said, “No temple or khas land can be illegally possessed. The RDC has been notified of this. He will do whatever is needed.”
