Awami League leaders and activists in Bagmara upazila yesterday besieged the office of a government engineer and demanded his removal within 24 hours.
Nearly a hundred agitators took position in front of the office of the engineer, Rezaul Karim, at Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), and demonstrated for about an hour, said Inspector Asaduzzaman of Bagmara Police Station.
Led by Mokbul Hossain Mridha, vice president of the upazila unit AL, they also demanded authorisation of installation of new deep tubewells.
Amid heightened tension “we retracted [from the office premises] to avoid any untoward incident, but we called for reinforcement to disperse them,” Inspector Asad said. The AL men left the scene before the additional forces arrived.
Speaking to this correspondent, the assistant engineer, alleged that Zakirul Islam Sunto, the upazila chairman as well as the AL general secretary in the upazila, is behind the agitation. After he did not give in to Sunto's unlawful demands for authorising installation of 268 new deep tubewells and upgrading a deep tubewell to twice its authorised horsepower allocation, Sunto instigated his followers to launch the demonstration, Rezaul said.
The agriculture ministry has halted installation of new deep tubewells due to the groundwater depletion, but Sunto assaulted him in his office after Rezaul did not entertain his demands, he claimed. He also said he has filed a general diary with Bagmara Police Station Tuesday after the assault and he was staying in Rajshahi city fearing further assault.
However, Sunto denied Rezaul's allegations, saying he only “pushed” him out of his office Tuesday when Rezaul failed to give him a "reasonable explanation" why he was not visiting the place where tubewells were demanded for irrigation.