Khulna family living in walled off house finally free after a year

The mobile court, ruling in favour of the family’s ownership of their property located in Paikgacha upazila in Khulna, tore the wall down on Sunday afternoon and freed the family members who have been living in the enclosed house for more than a year. Sheikh Md Nurul Haque, Awami League lawmaker from Khulna 6 constituency, and his son Sheikh Monirul Islam had the 10-foot wall built around the house in January last year. Owner of the house Abdul Aziz Goldar, who is also the general secretary of number four ward committee of Awami League in Paikgacha, has been living inside the walled off house with his family.

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Azis’s family had filed two lawsuits against the lawmaker’s family, one charged them for land grabbing, the other for vandalising their home. Aziz’s son Asadul Islam, however, alleged that the entire wall was not torn down on Sunday. Maruf Ahmed, officer-in-charge of Paikgacha police station denied the claim, saying the entire wall was torn down in presence of upazila executive magistrate and upazila nirbahi officer of the area. But in any case, Aziz’s family can now get in or out of their house on foot instead of climbing over the wall or through a hole dug under the wall. A huge number of curious locals gathered around the house when the mobile court had arrived with riot police to demolish the wall. The dispute over the land between the two families began after the lawmaker’s son Monirul targeted a 50-decimal parcel of land, that included a 30-decimal parcel of khas (government) land and the adjacent Aziz home on a 20-decimal parcel. The entire 50-decimal parcel was walled off. Thakur Das Halder, who claimed to have owned the 30-decimal parcel before it was enlisted as khas land in 1996, said he had sought the help of the lawmaker to regain legal hold of his land. The lawmaker’s son obtained a power of attorney over Thakur’s land with the apparent aim of having the land demitted from khas classification. But Monirul however also went after Aziz’s land. Azis’s family have had possession of their home for 50 years.