Jibannagar (Chuadanga) Correspondent

Villages of Minajpur Mathpara in Baka Union have formed a human chain to protest the construction of a road on private land, excluding government land, in Jibannagar, Chuadanga.

Fifteen affected families organized the human chain yesterday, Friday afternoon. Hundreds of people from the village participated in the human chain.

It is learned that the work of rebuilding and expanding the road from Baka Bricksfield in Jibannagar Upazila to Minajpur via Andulbaria is underway. However, the villagers of Minajpur Mathpara claim that despite the fact that the road was a government site, the powerful illegally influenced the construction of the road on their land at that time.

The speakers in the human chain claimed that the map did not match the constructed road. By misleading the family members, some unscrupulous local people forced the authorities to build a road on our residential land. The government did not even acquire land from us for the construction of the road. Accordingly, the road was built by occupying our residential land. Even after a long time, we want to get our residential land back.

They warned the people not to let the road be built on their residential land, saying that there is government land next to where the road has been built. Awami League people are occupying the government land. And this was led by Baka Union Awami League leader Nizam.

The speakers also said that we have contacted all government offices including the UNO office to get our residential land back, but there has been no solution. We are even willing to give blood to get our land back.

15 families live here. Some have 5th century land, some 6th or 9th century. When the road was built 25-30 years ago, the government road in front of their house was very low. At that time, the road was built over their land by force, leaving behind government land.

Taking this opportunity, Akkas Ali, Niakat Ali, Momin, Jewel, Arshaful, Abdul Jalil, Rafiz Uddin, Shahidul and Mohidul, with the help of influential people of that time, occupied the government road land with a tin fence.

Until now, if we protested about this, we were tagged as BNP-Jamaat. Now, Union Baka Union BNP leader Bashar is now harassing us with Awami League tags and police.

When the accused were asked to comment on this, they fled the shop and house.

When asked about the road, Jibannagar Upazila Engineer's Office (LGED) Deputy Assistant Engineer Md. Rafiqul Islam said, there is a problem with the road there. That is why the road construction work there is stopped. We cannot evict anyone. If the matter is not resolved, the work will be stopped.