Rajshahi people on Wednesday formed a human chain in the city demanding protection of the environment, agricultural land and ensuring social security.
They formed the human chain under the banner of Sabuj Sanghati, Barind Youth Forum, and July-36 Parishad in front of the Rajshahi deputy commissioner office at 12 noon.
At the human chain, the speakers said that felling trees and filling ponds in Rajshahi city as well as excavating ponds on triple cropping land in the upazilas had been going unabated due to indifference and lack of monitoring by the district administration.
Nazmul Hasan Razu, member secretary of Sabuj Sanghati, said, 鈥楢fter taking the Rajshahi Textile Mills on lease, PRAN-RFL Group has cut down over two hundred trees and filled a large pond inside the factory in violation of the country鈥檚 existing laws,鈥� he said.
Shahidul Islam, regional coordinator of Bangladesh Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge, said that the PRAN-RFL chairman had misled the public.
鈥楤efore signing the public-private partnership agreement, he had promised to turn the facility into a green factory. After signing the agreement, they, however, have cut down more than 200 trees,鈥� he said.
Amzad Hossain, a villager of Bagmara upazila, alleged that local land grabbers had forcibly started excavating a pond on their land without taking any permission from them.
鈥榃hen we protested at excavating the pond by destroying paddy, the land grabbers even threatened to kill us,鈥� he said, adding that they had informed the administration and the police of the incident, but to no avail.
Mahmud Jamal Quaderi, convener of July-36 Parishad, threatened that they would go for a tougher movement if the district administration failed to stop felling trees and filling ponds in Rajshahi city, and excavating ponds on three cropping lands in the villages.
Later, they also submitted a memorandum to the advisers of the environment, forest, and climate change ministry, and land ministry, chairman of Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation, and director general of the Department of Environment, with their ten-point demand.
Their demands include taking immediate actions to stop pond excavation on farmland and arrest land grabbers, forming a committee with people from the district administration and senior citizens to look into the incident of unauthorised tree felling and pond filling inside Rajshahi Textile Mills, making the PPP agreement between PRAN-RFL and BTMC on the textile mills public and cancel the agreement if not eco-friendly, and taking legal actions against those who were responsible for felling trees and filling pond.
Earlier in October 2024, Pran-RFL Group signed an agreement with Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation to reopen Rajshahi Textile Mills through a private-public partnership.
According to the deal, Pran-RFL Group will pay Tk 6 crore to use Rajshahi Textile Mills for the first three years and Tk 1.71 crore for each subsequent year.
