Misrule grips Bogra town

Bogra’s mayor AKM Mahbubur Rahman was not in his Jail Road municipal office. He was busy with clients in the Gahar Ali building of the bar council. How does the mayor of a busy town like Bogra get time to run his own practice? He laughed at the question, saying the people of the town can answer that. He does go to the mayor officer and spends a little time there every morning.

Several councilors told Prothom Alo that the people are hardly aware that the pourashava (municipality) even exists. They do not receive civic services. The entire system is ineffective. The mayor is not allowed to do anything. Everything is controlled by a few councilors of the ruling party. And they are controlled by the councilor of ward no. 4 and district Sramik League general secretary Shamsuddin Sheikh. He is assisted behind the scenes by the recently expelled Jubo League leader Matin Sarkar, who is also on the RAB list of drug dealers. Matin Sarkar is the brother of Tufan, recently accused of rape.

Shamsuddin Sheikh has denied obstructing the mayor’s work. He told Prothom Alo, “I am doing my work. The mayor is doing his work. What you heard about me is not true.”

The Bogra pourashava polls were held on 30 December 2015. BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s advisor and district BNP president Mahbubur Rahman was elected mayor. Of the 27 councillors, 16 are of the BNP-Jamaat camp, including in the reserved seats. And 12 are from Awami League.

A pro-BNP councilor said, “After we were elected, a police officer suddenly called us over phone and told us not to go to the pourashava. The officer-in-charge (OC) of the sadar thana at the time, Abul Bashar, threatened them over the phone. Then on 10 March the Awami League councilors held a closed door meeting. At the meeting they made ward no. 4 councillor and Sramik League leader Shamsuddin Sheikh panel mayor-1 and Jubo League leader Aminul Islam panel mayor-2.”

An employee of the pourashava told Prothom Alo, the town unit Jubo League leader Matin Sarkar announced the results of the panel mayor election. Ward councilor Abdur Rahim was threatened for asking why Matin announced these results when he himself was not elected. Then a number of ruling party councilors turned unruly and grabbed control of the pourashava. Panel mayor Shamsuddin Sheikh took over the office room of the pourashava chief executive officer.

An employee said, Tufan’s wife’s elder sister councilor Marzia Akhter recently threatened the pourashava licence inspector. The inspector Shamsul Huq told Prothom Alo, “We are general employees and don’t want to talk about this.” Two other employees were similarly afraid to talk.

An employee on condition of anonymity said, “The panel mayor now runs the show. Matin and his associates are with him. They are in charge of everything including construction, contracting, road repairs, leasing out market places, rickshaw licences and such.”

There are over 15,000 battery operated rickshaws in the town and Tufan is the one who issues the rickshaw licences. Tufan’s name and phone number appears on the backs of all illegal auto-rickshaws. A total of Taka 2000 is collected from each auto-rickshaw before it takes to the streets. And every day they have to pay Tk 20. All this goes into Tufan’s pockets.

Then there was the incident over the lease of the city’s marketplaces Rajabazar, Fateh Ali Bazar, and Chashi Bazar. Matin and his people had these marketplaces in their control and this time round too, they were forcing the mayor to lease out these markets without any tender. The mayor refused. Then on 3 April this year, around 15 persons including Matin, the town unit Awami League convening committee member Abdul Mannan and Matin’s right-hand man Kanai Lal turned up at the mayor’s house. They told him that to lease out the markets without tender or else he would be shot dead when he went to the municipality.

The mayor filed a general diary (GD) with the police in this regard. Later the district Awami League president intervened and brought about an understanding between the two sides. The mayor sought help from the local government secretary.

Regarding the GD, the OC of the sadar thana Emdad Hossain told Prothom Alo, the two groups had settled their differences themselves and the GD had been withdrawn too. That is why there were no investigations into the matter.

Several residents of Bogra town said, there was no development in the municipality as the elected mayor could not perform his duties. President of the Bogra district unit of the Sammilito Sangskritik Jote (all-party cultural unity) Toufiq Hasan said, from the state of civic amenities in Bogra town, it is hardly evident that there is any pourashava there. It is a huge pourashava with 21 wards, yet no civic service.

President of the district unit of the Shacheton Nagorik Committee )commit of conscious citizens) Masudur Rahman said, water comes up to the knees when it rains, there are auto-rickshaw stands randomly set up all over the town, there are traffic jams throughout the day, the roads are in poor shape, and the town is mosquito infested. It is only when one has to pay taxes that one remembers there is a municipality.

A Prothom Alo report on Wednesday stated that the police failed to issue summons against Matin Sarkar in the Ujjal murder case. Bogra police super Mohammed Asaduzzaman told Prothom Alo yesterday, Matin had been absconding for eight years, but the police had received no summons against him as yet. They received no summons to seize his property. On 20 June they heard of a summons order, but that hadn’t reached the police as yet. The police super said, they couldn’t carry out the order as they hadn’t even received it.                                                                                                                                                                                                      More News...