‘500 indigenous families have left Bangladesh’

Council President Rabindra Soren announced this number on Wednesday at a discussion in the city on implementation and current status of Vested Property Act, (amendment), 2009, saying the council had listed the names of these families. “The main reason behind their leaving is losing their land,” he said. This happened due to many reasons, such as the Vested Property Act, the Tenancy Act of 1950, persecution during the Tebhaga movement, land-grabbing by corrupt government companies like sugar mills, land-grabbing in the name of forestation and corruption in land surveys, the indigenous leader said. “Every time a land survey was conducted, indigenous people lost their lands,” he said. “A Bangalee would register an indigenous property under their own name, and when they asked for the land back, the offender would file one case after another, persecuting the victim until they left the country,” Rabindra explained. Land-grabbers would not even exempt the grave of an indigenous freedom fighter in Godagari, Rajshahi. The land-grabbing mostly goes on in Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Gaibandha and Gazipur, but also in other districts. Communities that live in or near forests are often evicted when the government takes up afforestation plans in that area, he said. “As the indigenous people do not have leaders or educated members, their rights are not represented. Since independence, we have not had a single MP,” he added. Advocate Rana Dash Gupta, on behalf of the Coordination Cell on Implementation of Vested Property Act, read out a nine-point demand at the programme. Among the demands were: an end to issuance of notice papers by the Land Ministry, forming a monitoring cell to ensure implementation, an exclusive tribunal appellate in every district, an end to requiring permission from Law ministry after completing case procedures and preventing government officials from harassing victims. Quoting Abul Barakat’s research, the lawyer said in the last fifty years at least 12 lakh Hindu families had left the country due to persecution. Rights activist and Supreme Court lawyer Tobarak Hossain said if the nine points could be implemented, attacks on minority communities that happened in Gobindaganj, Nasirnagar and Ramu would never be repeated or would decline. Chief guest of the programme, Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon, said not all of demands can be fulfilled immediately, but a monitoring cell would be formed within a short time. Eminent lawyer Sultana Kamal said the government must answer to the people about their actions. “They have many a times taken decisions in favour of religious extremists,” she said.