Bengali film legend Suchitra Sen’s ancestral home in Pabna has been finally freed from the clutches of the Imam Ghazali Institute after a more than three-decade tussle.
District Administration officials led by Land Officer and Executive Magistrate Shamim Ara Rini took possession of the one-storied house in the town’s Gopalpur neighbourhood on Wednesday afternoon.
The officials locked the two panel doors but the organisation’s signboard remains fastened over the main entrance.
Authorities had earlier tried but failed to free Suchitra’s home due to legal obstacles.
But the full copy of a Supreme Court verdict released on Jul 10 cleared all barriers.
Born in 1931, Rama Dasgupta Krishna is better known as screen goddess Suchitra Sen. She spent her childhood in the house in Pabna’s Hemsagar Lane before her family moved to India during the 1947 Partition.
Pabna Deputy Commissioner Kazi Ashraf Uddin said the district administration would formally take over the house’s control at 11am on Thursday.
In 1987, the house was leased to Imam Ghazali Trust, set up by the Jamaat.
They applied for permanent possession of the house in June 1991, but the government rejected the request.
Four years later, the lease was cancelled for payment not being made but the institute paid the dues and renewed the lease.
Finally in June 2009, the district administration cancelled the lease after strident demands to expel the Jamaat from the house and convert it into a museum was raised by local residents and cultural organisations.
An eviction notice was served on the institute but it moved the Supreme Court which granted a stay on eviction.
Two petitions had been filed on the issue.
One by Ghazali Institute in 2009 to maintain possession of the house while the other by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) in 2011 to convert it into a museum.
The High Court threw out the institute’s plea and upheld the one by the HRPB in August 2011.
It asked the pro-Jamaat body to vacate Sen’s ancestral home within two months.
Ghazali Institute then filed two appeals against the High Court verdict — one to stay the eviction order and the other to overturn the verdict to convert the house into a Museum.
The Appellate Division threw out both the petitions and upheld the High Court’s verdict.
On July 26, 2012 the High Court ordered the government to occupy the house within seven days following a HRPB petition.
The Appellate Division stayed the order the next day based on a plea by Imam Ghazali Institute’s principal Ayub Hossain Khan.
However, on May 4, the Appellate Division dismissed the plea and insisted that the house be turned into a museum dedicated to the film legend’s memory.
The district administration took over the house after the final verdict was signed on July 10.
Source: Bd news24
