The national minority Santals and Bengalis who survived police attacks on November 6, 2016, at Gobindaganj in Gaibandha when they protested against their eviction iterated their demands, including their claim to their ancestral land.
To observe the eighth anniversary of the police-led attacks on Santals and Bengalis, national minority community people and the owners of 1842.30 acres of land in Sahebganj and Bagdafarm villages, the victim families gathered at several points in the country, including at Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka on Wednesday.
Under the banner of Sahebganj-Bagdafarm Bhumi Uddhar Sangram Committee, a platform of movement for regaining land rights, they also demanded that the interim government arrest all the people responsible for the 2016 police attacks that took lives of Shyamal Hembram, Mangal Mardi and Ramesh Tudu and injured hundreds of villagers.
Their demands also included squashing all 鈥榝alse鈥� cases filed against them.
A Dhaka-based committee of solidarity with the Sahebganj-Bagdafarm Farm villagers hosted a rally where national minority representatives, social and political activists reaffirmed their support for the victim families.
The rally was started with the rendition of a Santal song glorifying the supreme sacrifice of three protesters.
Several Bagdafarm villagers including Rani Hembram, Golenoor Akhter, Rafael Hasda and Ganesh Murmu revisited their continued protest programme.聽聽
Anu Muhammad, a former professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, said, 鈥楨ndorsing national minority communities鈥� land rights is a simple test that the interim government should succeed.鈥�
Ganosamhati Andolan chief coordinator Zonayed Saki warned the interim government of a rebound of the fascist regime if it failed to address logical demands of the underprivileged communities who strengthened the anti-fascist movement and the movement against looting in the past 16 years.
Bangladesh Adivasi Union central president Rebeka Soren and Jatiya Adivasi Parishad general secretary Bimal Chandra Rajwar demanded that the interim government address the land rights of the national minority communities, including the Santals of the Sahebganj-Bagdafarm Farm villages.
Rights activist Shirin Haque, Dhaka University teachers Samina Luthfa and Moshahida Sultana, researcher Maha Mirza, Bangladesh Krishak Samiti general secretary Kazi Sazzad Zahir, Tajul Islam Pradhan, trade union leader Taslima Akhter, Rema Chakma, Abdus Sattar, among others, spoke at the event.
Chaired by social activist Zakia Sisir, the rally was anchored by Supreme Court lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua.
抖阴精品 staff correspondent in Rajshahi, meanwhile, reported that Jatiya Adivasi Parishad held a press conference and rally in the city to press their seven-point demand.
The organisation urged the government to scrap its plan to build an export processing zone occupying 1,000 acres of three-crop agricultural land requisitioned from their ancestors in the Shahebganj-Bagdafarm area.
Addressing the press conference at the Rajshahi Union of Journalists office, Subhas Chandra Hembrom, organising secretary of the parishad, said that the previous government had made plenty of promises to ensure justice for Santals in the past eight years, but none of them were implemented yet.
He also pressed home several other demands including recognition of national minority people as 鈥榠ndigenous people鈥� in the constitution, formation of a separate ministry and a land commission for national minority people on plain lands, restoration of 5 per cent quota for them in government jobs and higher education.
The organisation held a rally in the Saheb Bazar zero point area after the conference.聽