NOAKHALI — Police filed a case against six Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders and activists accused of illegally extracting sand from a sea beach on Nijhum Dwip Union in Hatiya upazila, officials said. Four or five unidentified suspects were also charged.
Hatiya police station Officer-in-Charge AKM Azmal Huda confirmed the case Saturday afternoon. The complaint was filed Thursday at Hatiya police station by Md. Humayun Kabir, the assistant land officer in charge of Jahajmara Union.
Those named are: Anoyar Hossain, former president of Nijhum Dwip Union BNP; Md. Shahed Uddin, former vice president; Enayet Hossain, joint general secretary of Nijhum Dwip Union Jubo Dal; Rasel, former member of Hatiya upazila Chhatra Dal; Abdur Rahim, an activist with Nijhum Dwip Union BNP; and supporter Afsar Uddin.
The complaint says the suspects gathered with various weapons on a government beach southwest of Nijhum Dwip’s Namar Bazaar, intending to profit illegally. They then forced their way into the government beach area, installed a dredger and began extracting sand unlawfully.
When union land officer Humayun Kabir tried to stop the sand extraction, the suspects abused him and threatened to kill or injure him, the complaint says. The illegal activity caused the government losses of about 1 million taka.
According to local sources, Abdur Rahim — a Nijhum Dwip Union BNP activist — was tasked with removing sand for cultivation from land leased by Md. Shakhawat Hossain, a former upazila BNP president and BNP-nominated parliamentary candidate for Noakhali-6 (Hatiya) in the 2018 election. Rahim used a dredger belonging to Anoyar Hossain, the former Nijhum Dwip Union BNP president, to extract the sand. Video of the operation circulated on social media and drew the attention of the administration, which halted the extraction and filed the case after seizing the equipment.
A local resident who asked not to be named told Dhaka Post that former BNP president Anoyar Hossain and Abdur Rahim had been illegally extracting sand from the Nijhum Dwip beach area using a dredging machine, posing a serious threat to the island’s environment and coastal biodiversity.
Former upazila BNP president Md. Shakhawat Hossain said: “Rice grows on my leased land. But cultivating it had become difficult because of sand brought in by the tide. So I gave Abdur Rahim responsibility for removing the sand. Someone spread rumors on Facebook, and the administration stopped the sand extraction.”
Hatiya police station Officer-in-Charge AKM Azmal Huda said the case has been filed with six named suspects and four to five unidentified ones. “Legal action will follow,” he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report