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6 years ago

Thrust on united protest to prevent land grabbing

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Speakers at a seminar on Sunday stressed the need for getting people united to mount protest and prevent illegal land grabbing by different quarters, including the government and non-government entities.

"If people get united, it's possible to prevent illegal land grabbing," the seminar was told, citing an example that a proposal to develop an international airport at Arial Beel of Munshiganj district was cancelled in 2011 amid protests.

The speakers also stressed the need for enacting a new land protection law, implementation of Detailed Area Plan (DAP) and modernisation of Land Reforms Ordinance, 1984 to secure rights of the marginalised people.

Association for Land Reforms and Development (ALRD) organised the seminar titled 'Land Grabbing in Bangladesh: Diversity of Techniques' at the National Press Club in the city, presided over by its chairperson Khushi Kabir.

Former senior research fellow of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Bimal Kumar Saha, Dhaka University Professors MM Akash and Dr Shapan Adnan, and ALRD executive director Shamsul Huda also spoke at the seminar.

Mr Akash said land is a fundamental right of the citizens and that is why the people with power grab lands as a method of repression.

Besides, no matter what type of government it is -- socialist or democratic -- influential people always try to stretch their control over the marginalised people by grabbing their lands.

Mr Huda said that there had been no comprehensive research at government level to find out the intensity and reasons behind land grabbing in the country.

Acres of arable land, jungles, land of indigenous people have been acquired or grabbed by the government or private organisations or people, he added.

He, however, stressed the need for a separate law to protect farmland, lands of poor and indigenous people.

A number of people, who lost their lands to powerful quarters, alleged that they mostly lost their lands to different real-estate companies, industrialists and some agencies of the government.

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