50 hurt in police action on protesters
At least 50 people, including several women, were injured as police charged baton on demonstrators staging a sit-in in Abhaynagar upazila of Jessore yesterday, demanding the water-logging problem in Bhabodaha be solved.
The Bhabodaha Water Drainage Action Committee had called for the protest programme at Swadhinata Chattar in Noapara at noon.
Witnesses said hundreds of people from the water-logged areas had poured into Prembag area by the Dhaka-Jessore highway since morning. They sat down on the road in Nurbag area around 11:30am.
All of a sudden, police baton-charged demonstrators to disperse them.
Chaitanya Kumar Paul, acting member secretary of the Action Committee, alleged that police intercepted people in different areas to prevent them from joining the sit-in.
Among the injured are the committee's chief adviser Iqbal Kabir Zahid and convenor Ranjit Bawali.
At least 20 of the injured received treatment at the upazila health complex, said Iqbal, also a Politburo member of Workers Party.
OC Anisur Rahman of Abhaynagar Police Station said law enforcers charged baton on demonstrators after “coming under attack from them”.
The demonstrators later held a rally in front of the Veterinary Hospital in protest at the police action.
People in Bhabodaha have been staging demonstrations for the last two months demanding a solution to the water-logging problem.
Iqbal Kabir Zahid said water was receding very slowly as only one excavator has been deployed in the Bhabodaha river to remove silt. He demanded the authorities concerned deploy more excavators to speed up drainage.
The committee yesterday announced fresh agitation programmes to press home its demands. It will hold a protest rally at Daratana Bhairab intersection in Jessore town today, a sit-in in front of the Khulna divisional engineer's office of Water Development Board on October 13 and a demonstration in front of the Jatiya Press Club in the capital on October 17.
The demands include deployment of four more excavators in the river, starting of the tidal river management project at Beel Kapalia, linking of Amdanga and Rajapur canals, linking of the Mathabhanga and the Bhairab rivers, ensuring food security of the affected people, rehabilitating them and halting loan recovery by different NGOs.
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