Author: Mominul Islam Shuruz
Publication: Star Weekend Magazine
Date: December 10, 2004
Translated by Mustafa Zaman
Encounter with the Victims
"I am happy that you all have come
to see us. Please help us live our lives ... and look after us ... entreats
an elderly woman, whose name is Prya Dasi, a villager let me know. Prya
Dasi has lost her sight and her hearing too has diminished. She pleads
for the "safety" of her people.
Twenty-six days after the incident,
the community that was subjected to merciless beating, humiliation and
continuos persecution by a group of miscreants out to grab their land,
saw no signs of empathy from the local authorities. As she allows me to
take a snapshot of her, I ask her how old she is. "Four kuri and five,"
a villager chips in. This means four into twenty, plus five; which makes
her 85. At this age she has enough reason to worry over the safety of her
community. The land the usurpers are out to grab is the sacred cremation
ground that has been a part of this village for as long as she remembers.
Prya Dasi lost her husband "eight
years after the war of independence in 1971". "Where will we be if they
take this land away from us. My husband is lying in that land and I too
deserves a place in that shoshan (cremation ground)", Prya Dasi intones.
The land-grabbers are oblivious
to such emotional attachment of people to their land. They are even disrespectful
to the traditional life-style of a minority, which has been the part of
the demographic landscape since time immemorial. The usurpers have often
threatened the people with eviction from their households.
On the fateful day, during the atrocious
attack, the whole community found itself at the receiving end of a premeditated
aggression. Some received severe beating and some ended up with near-fatal
injuries. Gouri Das, around fifty, was brutally attacked. On the palm of
her right hand, she bears the deep gash of being struck by a sharp weapon.
There is another cut on the right side of her head. As she speaks it becomes
clear that there is little she remembers of the mayhem, as she was knocked
unconscious from the first few blows she received. She does however, remember
her first attacker. "It was Kader, son of Mafizuddin, who struck me on
the head with a sharp weapon," she asserts. She cannot tell "who else beat
her up later". As she gained consciousness, she found her sari missing.
Hari Dasi, another 40 year-old villager,
found herself in the same predicament. She was literally trampled by a
bunch of men, men who knew no mercy. Hari Dasi testifies that "the pain
is still there after all these days". "I had to spend a thousand taka to
get well, though I have not yet recuperated," she relates.
The patch of land, the main cause
of the atrocity, lies besides a pond. We went to have a look at it for
ourselves. For the Hindus of this region it is a sacred ground, as it is
their final resting-place. Broken earthenware is scattered all over the
ground, signs of cremation punctuated by mounds of earth, under which the
remains of the dear ones are buried. Who would want to usurp such a religiously
significant land? But here in Gopalpur there are people who are even ready
to put an end to others' lives to gain a patch of land.
At the cremation ground, we meet
Bimala Rani Das, a sexagenarian. She is straightforward in her appeal,
"I want peace, this land always belonged to my community, I have seen so,
since my childhood. Why do they want to grab this land now, I don't know!
My husband died and was cremated on this very ground. When I die I would
like to be cremated here, please see to it that it happens," she continues.
Even girls of the Hindu community
at Gopalpur village have stopped going out of the house in fear of these
miscreants who openly harass them on the streets.
Malati Rani, a seventeen-year-old
girl, had to stop going to school altogether. She had studied up to class
ten at the local Jalsheen high school, and it came to a halt last year.
Young men from the land grabber group used to swear at her every day on
her way to school.
Faced with the question of why she
stopped going to school from which she received a stipend, Malati is hesitant.
Her answer to why she quit school is short: "they swear at me."
The same reason stopped Shilpi Rani,
age 16, from going to school two years earlier. The list goes on. There
are several others of this age group whose willingness to pursue education
has been stymied by the local goons. Chandana, Kalpana, Shilpi, Niasha,
Sabitri and Madhubala's dreams were dashed for the same reason.
Many parents have stopped even their
smaller children from going to Jalsheen School. To avoid harassment they
now send them to Ruail primary school, which is in the adjacent village
Ruail.
But with daughters, parents are
more cautious, as the feeling of insecurity multiplies when it comes to
a girl child.
A community in search of security
In the face of the worst attack
on the Hindu community by the group of land-grabbers and their henchmen,
not much has been done by the authority to mitigate the victims. Our encounter
with the authority took place while we were on our way to the Gopalpur
village. We met a constable who suddenly blocked our way with a "salute"
and inquired about our mission. He introduced himself as being a constable
of the Dhamrai thana. His name was Imdadul Haq. The two men he was accompanying
to the thana were Lackshan Chandro Mondal and Subhash Sarkar. They were
on their way to the thana along with "relevant papers" -- the deeds of
their land.
We inspect the summons notice from
the thana that these two men received but found that there was no mention
of who they were suppose to report to or meet. No officer's name was mentioned
in the notice. As we ask constable Haq about this, he has only one thing
to say, "I was ordered to take them to the thana and I am just following
orders."
Meanwhile, as we lock ourselves
in conversation with Subhash, one of the plaintiffs, he with disappointment,
"We have been to every possible source, we urged them to help us and to
give us shelter, but to no avail," "We went to the chairman Matiur Rahman.
He advised us to remain under the umbrella of the law. We have been so
for last few years, still we are finding ourselves at the receiving end
of merciless beating every year," Subhash continues. He also adds that,
"The main goal of these people (land-grabbers) is to evict us from our
own land and households. We have been subjected to atrocities since as
long as I can remember. You will not find a single man in this community
who was not beaten up at least once."
Lakhshan recalls the previous year's
incident. "When they scooped out all the fishes out of the pond beside
the cremation ground and the temple, a case was filed. Even the newspapers
took it up. At first the law enforcing agency seemed very active, but soon
everything died down," laments Lakhshan.
The most disturbing aspect is that
the community has been kept at its tether's end for the last couple of
years, and the lip service meted out by the investigating officer in charge
has amounted to little and the attacks, harassment and other forms of abuses
continues unabated. As usual the hands of the law, as usual, fail to reach
out to these people when they are in such dire situations.
Lakhshan's desperation is evident.
"The same group has committed these crimes this year and with greater brutality
than last year's attack. In the past women were spared. This time they
were not; many were even forcefully disrobed."
It was Lakhshan who filed the case
on behalf of his community. So, he and his companion are supposed to go
to the thana. As the duo leave us behind, what happens at the thana that
day, on November 28, we are eager to know. We go back to the village the
following day to find out.
As we look for Lakhshan on November
29, we fail to track him. He is nowhere to be found. Luckily, we catch
hold of his companion of the previous day. Subhash tells us that as they
went to the thana, they were "made to wait for the OC for the whole day."
"As the daroga (OC) arrived, after prevaricating for sometime, he said
'I am happy that you have come' and then cautioned us not to 'babble' in
front of the journalists. The OC's resolve was firm, as Subhash's words
testify. He said, "It is the police who will bring justice, it is the police
who will catch the criminals. So be careful what you say in front of others."
An Eye-Witness Account
Subhash is an eye-witness to what
took place on November 2. He helps us reconstruct the scene.
It was around ten thirty in the
morning when a group of people installed a water pump to siphon out the
water from the pond next to the cremation ground. The ground is only 27
acres, but it has been a source of a lot troubles since the day the land
grabbers targetted it as the next piece of land for usurpation. The miscreants
consisting of Lal Miah (35), Ibrahim (38), Jahangir (28), Kader (30), Mojibor
(37), Zohurul (25), Ziaur (19), Malek (25), Hashem (20) and a few others
were there to obstruct anyone from the Hindu community who would intervene.
There was a string of women who stood in a circle, guarding the water pump.
When the people of the community rushed to put a stop to the siphoning,
one of the men said, "charaler po (son of a commoner), don't cross the
limit, if you do, we will file a case for repression against women and
will throw you out of this country."
Subhash and his fellow men were
not to be deterred as their livelihoods were at stake. They waved off the
threats and "forced the group of people from keeping the water-pump running."
He has a clear explanation for their action, "If we cannot protect our
own religion what's the use in keeping on living. This small patch of land
has been our cremation ground, it has been so since the time of our ancestors."
"We ignored their threats and made
them stop the water pump. But, we did not realise the consequence of that
would be so devastating," Subhash hastens to add.
What followed after that was something
no one from Subhash's community ever anticipated. The band of men, who
installed the water pump and were trying to siphon the pond, rushed toward
the paddy field, where they kept their weapons hidden. Armed with machete,
sticks and lances, they swooped on the community that had little protection
from the authority, let alone any influential group or men.
The invading men went looking for
women and children. They scrambled inside their houses. They beat them
up, slashed them and plundered their homes and even went so far as to taer
off the women's clothes.
Sixty-five families have categorically
being victimised by this "land-grabbing clique." It is more a case of wresting
properties from the weak than of religious persecution. As Hindus of the
locality are the weakest, they keep losing their lands to aggressors who
reign the localities with their muscle as well as social and political
clout. This is the reality of Bangladesh, and the village of Gopalpur is
no exception.
Here, the Hindus claim that there
is a moratorium, an unofficial one though, on cremation on the sacred patch
of land that they call shoshan. The perpetrators have been trying to enforce
this even before the attack.
The victims got little respite from
the Dhamrai thana. No officer from the police station or administration
went to visit the scene of the crime. Even from the political fold, no
representative showed up to console the victims, to assure their security.
It was only when the news of it hit the press that the apathetic administration
received a stirring.
Even the location of the Gopalpur
village, as stated in the police record, is confusing. In the recent record
it is ten kilometres south of the Dhamrai thana. Last year, in the FIR
placed by the community it was placed at a distance of 16 kilometres. A
farming village in the Nannar Union, it lacks proper communication infrastructure
and is locked by the water bodies that surround it. The Hindus live on
a two acre mound of earth, 65 families are squeezed together to pursue
their traditional way of life.
The hour-long mayhem that went on
in this village left many of the villagers seriously injured. Harilal (18),
Naresh (20), Nepal Rani (50), Neel Kamal (70) were the ones who received
serious blows. The septuagenarian Neel Kamal, was not at the spot. He was
out in the field. The perpetrators spotted him there as they were returning
after completing their 'adventure'. "Before I could make anything out of
the situation I collapsed," Kamal testifies.
He is the former member of the Union.
"I have been trying to compromise a lot to come to an amicable solution.
However, I have been beaten up four times by this group." Neither was he
spared on November 2. He was out on the field and it was Zahurul, the son
of the mastermind behind the attack, who attacked him. Zahurul's father
Ibrahim led the group that swooped on the families of 64 households.
The brutality continued in other
forms following the atrocious attack. Josna Rani, the daughter of the aging
ex-member, had been manhandled while she was coming to Gopalpur to see
how her father was doing after the beating.
As she was nearing her father's
house, a group of four or five men hurled abuses at her and snatched a
box of sweets she had been carrying. Josna wants justice for what has been
done to her father. She echoes her community's appeal: "Please make sure
that these abuses stop, so that we are safe outside our house."
Into the second day of our investigation,
we get the chance to meet Modhu Mondol, who sheds some light on the land-grabbing
spree. "There are only eight to ten acres of land remaining. The rest have
already changed hands," Mondol laments. Another villager named Santosh
Mondol remembers how, after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in India,
"the other cremation ground was usurped by the same group at that time.
Atrocities followed by grabbing of their land; it is a vicious, manmade
cycle. "My own land is in the process of usurpation, the local miscreants
have built their houses on my land. And the 180 decimal of the cremation
ground and the pond is what they are after now," testifies Sontosh.
Knocking at the Doors of the Law
Our next destination was the police
station in Dhamrai. We wanted to know how far the law-enforcing agency
has advanced at bringing the culprits to justice. We met Tareq Kamal, the
Officer in Charge (OC) of Dhamrai thana, at mid noon. He let us know that,
he "is trying to resolve the land dispute." "We are even trying to round
up the accused," he adds.
However, it is everyone's knowledge
that the accused are freely roaming around the locality. The villagers,
who were unwilling to divulge their names, believe that, "the accused will
never be arrested, as they have political connections." When we confront
the OC with this doubt expressed by the local people, Kamal's answer is
curt. "Many people will say many things, they are incorrect in most occasions"
he says.
Twenty-seven days after the filing
of the FIR, no one was arrested. How will the villagers rely on the authority,
let alone the words of the OC? The biggest sign of inaction is that while
the accused are said to be absconding, there have been no attempts on the
part of the police and the authority to seize the properties of the accused
in their absence, which is the normal practice.
Meanwhile, the accused were no where
to be found. On November 28, we conducted a kind of door-to-door search
to meet with them. Everybody was missing from their own houses. At Kader's
home, his wife Sufia says outright, "He is not home, he went out to meet
the local MP (Member of Parliament)."
Another absconding accused Aziz
left his house in the morning. So did Ibrahim and Sona Miah. However, at
Sona Miah and Ibrahim's house, Ibrahim's wife Zohra Begum informs us that
he "went out with Kader in the morning."
As we press her for her opinion
on the incident, she obliges, though with her own brand of truth, "They
have committed the crime and now they have filed a case against us. They
let their cows loose to graze on our fava-bean field and when my son Zia
intervened the people of the Hindu para started beating him up. Then we
all rushed to the spot to stop the beating. Later I heard that they filed
a case." She is adamant about aligning us along her line of thinking. As
we tell her in her face that we have been roaming around the village and
had not seen any sign of fava-bean field anywhere she retorts "What is
it matter if you didn't see it, aren't there people in the village who
did? They have seen it all."
Although, in our two-day long investigation
we have heard people utter the names of the goons of the men behind the
attacks, no one has dared to even whisper the names of these patrons. "If
'they' change, the lives of our people will change," this was an opinion
that many shared among themselves but dared not to say out in the open.
Although no names were uttered, there was a clear hint that three land-grabbers
have been trying to transgress one land after another. Many allege that
these 'three' are operating "with the connivance of a powerful local BNP
leader.
Although no names were uttered,
the Hindu community of Gopalpur is unanimous on the malpractice of these
three men. Many believe that "They are experts in making forged documents."
Besides making forged papers to prove their lawful ownership to lands,
they specialise in bribing the relevant authority to advance their act
of usurpation. And there is an aspect to the land-ownership law, it says
that those who occupy the land are the owners, this is one law that they
readily take advantage of. To occupy, the land-grabbers use their thugs,
who flex their muscles at the opportune moments, as they did on November
2 this year.
Political clout makes things easier
for the land-grabbers. It is a common knowledge of the villagers that the
local MP, Ziaur Rahman, is a mentor of sorts to Badesh Fakir, one of the
accused. According to many of the villagers Fakir himself usurped 140 decimal
of land that previously belonged to the Hindus.
There have been efforts to investigate
the incidents of land grabbing by the government and the administration.
The assistant commissioner, magistrate and at times the local OC submitted
their findings, and their reports have always tilted in favour of the minority.
However, things stall at the stage when it comes to taking steps. The flow
of bribes keeps things at a stand still. Many even say that sometimes the
government officials take bribes from both sides. But there must be steps
on the part of the authorities to bring this land-grabbing spree to a halt.
A continuous and silent exodus among
the Hindus is thus inevitable. "There were people like Dhonoram and Pagol
Sarkar, who left in the face of repression. Now they are after Santosh
Mondol and his son Haripodo Mondol, Moron Mondol, Lakhshan Chandra Ashanondo
and Subhash." Who says this These are the brave people who stand in the
way of the land-grabbers.
To clear their way and to cloud
the situation, the land-grabbers have filed a case with counter allegations
accusing the people of the Hindu community. Thirty-five of them have been
made perpetrators in a crime that did not take place. The story of letting
the cows lose on the fava-bean field and the attempt to murder is what
they are staking on. Looting of cash and gold has also been attached to
these cases and those accused Hindu villagers have been branded as the
aggressors.
Thus the struggle continues.
Before we leave, one last walk
around the village brings us to the Kali Mandap. We meet Phul Basana, the
55 year old woman, whose hand bears a deep gash -- a mark made by a sharp
weapon. She was in her house on the fateful day. The perpetrators burst
into their house and started charging on her husband. Witnessing the plight,
she and her son rushed to the rescue. "During the attack while Lal Mia,
one of the attackers, aimed his machete at my scull I saved myself by obstructing
the blow with my hand," explains Basana. She just wanted to save her husband
and son.
Unless the authorities come forward
and protect the members of this community these attacks will recur year
after year. Until all their land has been usurped.