Land-grabbing Menace – Will this horrendous crime be ever stopped in Bangladesh?

The Borgyis (Marathas) attack us no more
Nor are there the Zamindars.
Yet, why is there so much wretchedness
In this land of ours?

Last night my sleep was broken by a distressful call from my brother-in-law. He said that he had been told by the police authorities in Chittagong that they’re under tremendous pressure from the Home Minister Sahara Khatun to withdraw deployment of the Ansar from our Khulshi properties. Some background information is necessary here to understand the gravity of the issue.

My father (a Calcutta University graduate, retired businessman and philanthropist) and mother (a retired college professor and writer) own nearly 3.8 acre land in Khulshi, next to the Ispahani Properties, in Chittagong, since the 1950s when the property values were cheap and affordable. We had 11 small houses, lived by our employees and tenants -- who were mostly school and college teachers, plus a six storied house “Aranika” where my family members and some tenants lived.

In April 2005, during the BNP rule, armed with hundreds of terrorist goons, a powerful land-grabbing crime syndicate that was led by an ex-convict and ex-madrasa employee (and ex-Rajakar) by the name of Jaker Hosain Chowdhury was able to break our boundary wall and break into our properties illegally. They had the blessing of a very powerful politician from the ruling party – a BNP-MP who was then adviser to PM Khaleda Zia. Within hours, the criminals evicted all the 16 tenant families from our smaller one-storied houses and terrorized everyone, including those living inside the more secure Aranika. The sad episode was widely covered in most Bangla newspapers.

The Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP), mindful of pressure coming from the PMO, initially was hesitant to get involved and my pleas to the Prime Minister and Expatriate Affairs Minister seemed to go nowhere. I even contacted the current Prime Minister Sk. Hasina for help. I approached Mr. Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, then Bangladesh Ambassador to the USA, and the US Embassy in Dhaka who vowed to help us. My father and I even had a press conference in mid-April in the Dhaka Press Club exhibiting all our deeds and documents related to our rightful claim of legal ownership of the properties. This was also reported in some Bangla dailies and an English weekly.

I felt betrayed by my own acquaintances and classmates who worked for the Prime Minister. They chose to either ignore my pleas for intervention or were afraid that by raising the issue with the Madam they might lose their jobs or favored status. I found them to be cowards and self-serving opportunists with no guts and bites of conscience or morality.

Nothing seemed to work until in late May, some six weeks after the illegal intrusion, when an unbiased police inquiry found that we were truly victims of Jaker and his criminal gang. After consulting with all the OCs under his jurisdiction, the CMP Police Commissioner was courageous enough to call for a police raid against the trespassers in our properties in mid-June of 2005 and eventually succeeded in evicting them and arresting a couple of low-level criminals. Unfortunately, by that time, the criminals had totally demolished nine homes and cut down hundreds of valuable trees that were once planted by my father. For the courageous activities of calling a spade a spade, the DC-North, however, was promptly transferred from Chittagong and even sued by the criminal syndicate. It seems no good job gets unpunished in Bangladesh! Everything was so difficult those days for the victims, and so easy for the criminals! No government minister and MP were willing to come to the aid of a victim when one of their very own was involved in such high-priced crimes.

After recovering our properties, or what was left of those, we installed the Ansar in our properties, just like our long-term neighbor - the Ispahani Properties, so that we don’t relive through that painful experience any more. Based on court cases filed by my family and others, Jaker was found guilty. It was proven beyond any doubt that he had misled the court with false power of attorney of someone whose forefathers never owned our properties, even during the British era. But Jaker managed to remain free evading justice. When the military-backed Care-taker Government came to power in January 11, 2007, he was put behind the prison walls. And we felt relieved and temporarily withdrew the Ansar from our premises, hoping that we won't be revisited by the episode of 2005. But we were wrong. After spending only five weeks, Jaker managed to get free. We later learned that he had tied knots with a senior Army officer with a promised share of the potential loot. How wonderful! At Jaker’s behest, a junior officer reporting to the senior officer would often make threatening calls to my family. It was an unnerving moment for us!

Probably emboldened by such a connection at the military high command, Jaker and his goons tried to break into our properties in January 30 of 2008. The incident was again covered in several newspapers. We had difficulty believing that a convicted criminal like Jaker would have the audacity to do his evil acts under military’s watch! But we learned that with right connections everything is possible in Bangladesh. The corrupt OC of Khulshi Thana was bought by the syndicate before the incursion, who won't respond to our frantic calls for help against the goons. Eventually, with a call from my classmate, a serving Lt. General in the Army, after much reluctance, the police moved in. But by that time, the goons had left after demolishing our guard’s house and partially breaking our boundary wall. The OC initially did not want to even take a GD. Jaker was later imprisoned but again came out with a bail petition filed on his behalf. I tried to bring the matter of repeat offenses by Jaker to the attention of General Moeen U. Ahmed, but nothing happened; the file probably disappeared.

Based on our criminal case filed in 2005, Jaker and eight of his top associates within the crime syndicate were sentenced to a 6.5-year R.I. term each in 2008 on a plethora of charges, including land-grabbing, illegal demolition of properties, forgery, falsifying documents, deeds and stamps, use of false power of attorney, etc. When he was put behind the bar, we thought that the worst was over. Unfortunately, after serving only a few weeks of his total sentence period, Jaker filed a bail petition in the High Court, which was granted. He manages to remain free to conspire and harass legal land-owners.

Interestingly, when Jaker found out that his old schemes to illegally grab our properties, 48-acre of Ispahani Properties and acres of other genuine landowners did not work, he came up with newer devious methods. In one such case, based on a forged land deed (# 2858) from the Sitakund Sub-Registry Office, dt. 5 September, 1977, he claimed to have directly bought all those acres of land; no more power of attorney this time. He was proven guilty of forging the deed. He is also guilty of forging land stamp (# 33187), valued at Tk. 10,000, dt. 1 September, 1977.

So fraudulent are his activities that on February 17, 2009 the Additional District Commissioner (Treasury) ordered taking legal actions against Jaker for forging stamps and deeds, and harassing genuine land-owners. But as usual, he manages to remain free, even with anticipatory bail petitions.

After that second attempt by criminal land-grabbing syndicate to grab our properties, we redeployed the Ansar to secure our properties.

Last year, Jaker managed to bribe a corrupt magistrate (Asaduzzaman Khan) to issue an arrest warrant, without any police inquiry, against my 84-year old father falsely claiming that the latter had tried to kill him by squeezing his balls when he visited our properties on a broad daylight in mid-February. A simply inquiry with the deployed Ansar could have proven the absurdity of the case. But with unscrupulous magistrates under one’s pocket sometimes everything seems so easy for a criminal mind! We had to come to Dhaka and file a petition against the absurd charge, leaving behind my sick mother who needed continuous monitoring of her health. What a travesty of justice in the hands of corrupt magistrates who have no accountability!

After the AL Mahajote government came to power, we all expected that our days of suffering are probably over. After all, the goons were once connected with the BNP. But we are continuously proven wrong. We forget that in Bangladesh, these powerful land-grabbing criminals have long arms and are always adaptable to find new sponsors, partners and goons to commit their illicit activities, totally oblivious of their accountability to God on the Day of Judgment. With long beards, long kurta, tasbih in hand, and a fitting cap, Jaker even presents himself as a pious man, more like the image one gets of the devil (Shaytan) who had dressed up as an Arab sheikh who conspired with the pagan Arabs to plot the murder of our Prophet Muhammad (S) some 14 centuries ago. His kind is oblivious of the stern warning from our Prophet (S) against land-grabbers: “Whoever usurps the land of somebody unjustly, his neck will be encircled with it down the seven earths (on the Day of Resurrection).” (Bukhari)

In recent days, we are appalled to learn that Jaker and his criminal land-grabbing syndicate have been able to find new sponsors - Planning Minister (Retd.) Air Vice Marshal A.K. Khandker and Home Minister Sahara Khatun. What a sickening and naked display of abuse of power when they pressure the Police to withdraw the Ansar protection from our properties so that Jaker’s criminal gang can grab our properties again! Forgotten are all the court cases we have won against the criminal syndicate! With corrupt politicians like those who needs a criminal these days!

This kind of nasty development with land-grabbing under the watch of the new government shows that certain things simply don't change in Bangladesh. Politicians come and go, but criminals remain and always find new partners and patrons for their crimes.

Since our personal tragic encounter, many expatriates have called me to seek advice. Truly, hardly a week passes without hearing similar heart rendering stories of suffering of genuine land-owners. In almost 90% of the cases I heard, some politicians, usually belonging to the ruling party or government have had been intimately involved. This must stop if we are serious about the image of Bangladesh that is interested in foreign investment. Who will invest in a country when a genuine owner with all legal documents and deeds, more than fifty years of payments of taxes, revenues and bills, don’t feel secure with its properties?

Will Prime Minister Sk. Hasina have the necessary resolve to stop such land-grabbing crimes that target the most vulnerable, law-abiding elderly citizens of Bangladesh? Will she stop her own Ministers from tying their knots with criminal syndicates?

May Allah help us all against such criminals and their partners and patrons! They plot and Allah plots, and Allah is the best of the Plotters! (Qur’an)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Defining the Biden Doctrine

George Soros at the Davos Forum