S A Shofiee, Sylhet :
Jaflong is widely known as a famous tourist centre and is also a reservoir of sand and stone resources. Due to the damage to the environment and environment caused by sand-stone mining, thousands of cubic feet of stones accumulated in several layers in the mouth of Dawki-Pian River after Dawki-Jaflong was declared a protected area for nature protection.
These stones, which have been measured for years, are now looted. After the fall of the government on August 5, it has emerged as official that one crore cubic feet of stone was stolen in one night looting. According to the current market price, the looted stone is worth around 100 crore taka.
Meanwhile, under Bhombe restaurant in Ballaghat, Jaintapur Upazila Awami League vice-president and also Tamabil Sthalbandar Syndicate’s Leader Jalal Uddin took charge of the stone sand-syndicate, replacing former upazila parishad chairman Shah Alam Swapan, who was expelled several times.
Not only that, he is in charge of protecting the business and assets of Jaflong’s notorious extortionists Alim, Firuz, Samed Gong, who were involved in vandalizing the election stage of former MP Dildar Hossain Selim of BNP.
His accomplices steal stones from Zero Point every night and hold several press conferences to save themselves if their misdeed goes viral.
According to the latest measurement on July 26, Jaflong had 3 crore 74 lakh cubic feet of stone stock. On August 5, in the absence of law and order forces, about 1 crore cubic feet of stone disappeared due to extensive looting. As it was a border area, even army personnel could not go there.
However, the locals are angrily calling the incident of stone theft that night as ‘loot-king’. A witness said, ‘There was no one to stop that day.
Thousands of people came and attacked like uposi to loot this stone.’ Members of an influential circle including district BNP co-editor Rafiqul Islam Shahparan, expelled BNP leader and former upazila parishad chairman Shah Alam Swapan and East Jaflong Union BNP president Amjad Bux are directly involved in this stone loot.
Although they were behind the scenes, the expelled president of East Jaflong Union Chhatra Dal, Azir Uddin, the expelled senior vice-president of Union Chhatra Dal, Suman Shikder, the expelled vice-president Parvez Shikder and Rubel Ahmad, were involved in extortion.
They looted Jaflong’s stone as well as looted the business establishment of Awami League leader Imran Hossain Sumon. Imran Hossain Sumon posted a post on his own Facebook ID mentioning the matter. He mentioned the names of all the looters there.
Goainghat upazila administration sources said that on November 14, 2015, the gazette declaring Jaflong as an Environmentally Critical Area (ECA) was published. Bangladesh Environmental Law Association (BELA) made this application in 2012.
Since then the lease operation of sand and stone quarries from Jaflong was terminated in several phases. In this, the upazila administration conducts monitoring of stones in the reserved area every month to keep the matter of stocking of stone resources in check.
Eyewitnesses say that after the fall of the government, the students and the crowd staged victory marches. Among them, the last procession organized by the UP branch of BNP in Jaflong and Tamabil area was held from afternoon to evening. And after this procession, stone looting took place at night. Goainghat upazila administration has compared the looting of hundreds of crores of rupees in one night with the looting of government property.
Goainghat Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Touhidul Islam said, ‘It was looted very neatly. Some of the CCTV cameras were broken before the robbery. In this regard, the higher authorities have been informed in the form of a report. Legal action will be taken after receiving their further instructions.’
Meanwhile, there is Tamabil land port on one side of Jaflong. On the night of August 5, several government offices in Tamabil were vandalized and looted. After that, the robbery happened in Jaflong. Jahangir Alam, Joint Commissioner of Sylhet Customs Department, said that the officials there have passed a terrible time since the afternoon of August 5. Thousands of people attacked the customs warehouse around 8 pm.
