The High Court on Tuesday asked the government to explain in two weeks why the recent eviction of 2,500 Santals from their ancestral land at Gobindaganj, now Shahebganj-Bagda Farm of Rangpur Sugar Mills Ltd, would not be declared illegal.
The government was also asked to explain why it would not be directed to take legal action against those who looted Santal houses before setting them on fire, shooting two of them to death and leaving 16 others injured on November 6.
A bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice Krisna Debanth issued the rule after hearing a writ petition jointly filed by Santal women Olivia Hembrom and Rumila Kisku, now homeless following the eviction.
Hit by bullets, both the eyes of Olivia’s husband Dizen Tudu were injured and he was arrested with the injuries and later enlarged on bail.
The respondents include secretaries of the ministries of home, law, industry and land, the inspector general of police, deputy inspector general of police of Rangpur range, deputy commissioner and the police superintendent of Gaibandha, upazila nirbahi officer of Gobindaganj, officer-in-charge of Gobindaganj police station, Rangpur Sugar Mill’s managing director, local MP Abul Kalam Azad and Sapmara Union Parishad’s chairman Shakil Akand Bulbul.
The respondents have been asked to submit their replies to the rule in two weeks.
Petitioners’ lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua submitted in the court that the eviction of the Santals were illegal as they were not notified 30 days before their eviction, as the law requires.
The attackers on the Santals should also be brought to justice, he submitted, as two Santals were shot dead and 16 of them were injured.
He also submitted that 600 houses belonging to Santals were looted before setting on fire during the illegal drive in which the Santals were evicted on November 6.
After hearing another writ petition filed by three rights groups, the same bench had on November 17 had asked the government to either allow Santals to harvest rice they had grown on a 100 acre corner of the sugar mill’s farm or ask the mill authorities to reap and handover their crop to the Santals.
The court also asked the SP and the OC to report to it in 10 days whether legal action had been taken against the perpetrators.
The previous writ petition was jointly filed by Ain O Salish Kendra , Association for Land Reform and Development and Brotee Samah Kalyan Sangstha.
The court would hear the two writ petitions together on November 30.
The petitioners submitted that many Santals had been arrested and detained in jails and many others have gone into hiding as the police want them in connection with several cases filed by the police making them accused in November 6’s clashes with police.
The Santals are passing their days under the open sky since their eviction, the petitioners submitted .
The Santals were evicted when they were pressing for the restoration of their ancestral land in three villages, Shahebganj, Madarpur and Joypur.
Santals maintain that 1,840.32 acres of their ancestral crop land were acquired during the Pakistan era for Rangpur Sugar Mill’s sugarcane plantation at Shahebganj. – See more at: http://www.newagebd.net/article/3333/hc-asks-govt-to-explain-attack-on-santals#sthash.cgQi0BEm.dpuf
Source: New Age