Gulam Rabbani :
Various accounts of forced occupation by Haji Selim, Member of the Parliament from the Dhaka-7 constituency, and his family have been emerging after one of his sons beating a naval officer recently.
His family even grabbed the land of the speech and hearing impaired people which was allocated by the government for setting up a school, sources said.
The government high school for the hearing impaired is located in a part of the National Federation of the Deaf building in Bijoynagar of the capital city. This is no longer big enough to accommodate the increasing number of students. The government, accordingly, allocated a one-acre plot of land in Lalbagh in 2005 for the school to be relocated.
However, the authorities could not set up the school there as the Dhaka-7 Member of Parliament Haji Salim has occupied the land. This had hampered the
education programme for the speech and hearing impaired.
Headmaster of the Dhaka Badhir High School (the government school for the hearing impaired), Aminul Islam, said that the school has 350 students with speech and hearing impairments. All the hearing and speech impaired persons in the country depend on this school, he added.
The government in 2005 allotted this piece of land to the school for a token price of Tk 500,000, said the documents. The land was registered in the name of the school and the school authorities have been paying taxes for the land since then.
According to the records, the district administration on 6 August 2005 measured the land, demarcated the plot and handed it over to the school authorities.
Advocate Taimur Alam Khandker who served as the Chairman of the school’s Managing Committee since 2003 to 2018 said that Haji Salim forcefully occupied the land within a few days after the Awami League led government came into the power following the 2008 general election.
After he (Haji Salim) had grabbed the land the authorities of the school took initiatives several times to recover the land, but they failed, added the former Chairman of the School.
Sources said that this plot is adjacent to the embankment at Sawarighat. There is a petrol pump, Madina Filling Station, on the plot. This filling station belongs to Haji Salim’s Madina Group. Alongside the filling station, there is a workshop and car servicing outlet. There is no signboard of the school anywhere there.
The local people say that the filling station was set up around 2007-08. This originally was low lying marshy khas land, the people said.
It has not been possible to communicate with Haji Salim or his elder son Solaiman Salim about the matter. Advocate Shree Prannath, a counsel for Haji Salim, said a case was under trial over ownership of the land in the 11th Assistant Judge’s Court of Dhaka. So the school authority cannot claim its ownership, added the lawyer. The school’s Headmaster Aminul Islam said, the case was filed on behalf of Haji Salim with forged papers and the court dismissed it.
A case was filed against Haji Salim’s son Erfan Salim for assaulting a naval officer recently. RAB then raided Haji Salim’s house in Lalbagh. Erfan Salim and his bodyguard were arrested.
Since then various accounts of forced occupation by Haji Salim and his family have been emerging. Agrani Bank authorities on October 26 recovered land which had been grabbed by Haji Salim in Old Dhaka’s Maulvibazar. The detective branch (DB) of police has begun interrogating Erfan Salim and his bodyguard.
Various accounts of forced occupation by Haji Selim, Member of the Parliament from the Dhaka-7 constituency, and his family have been emerging after one of his sons beating a naval officer recently.
His family even grabbed the land of the speech and hearing impaired people which was allocated by the government for setting up a school, sources said.
The government high school for the hearing impaired is located in a part of the National Federation of the Deaf building in Bijoynagar of the capital city. This is no longer big enough to accommodate the increasing number of students. The government, accordingly, allocated a one-acre plot of land in Lalbagh in 2005 for the school to be relocated.
However, the authorities could not set up the school there as the Dhaka-7 Member of Parliament Haji Salim has occupied the land. This had hampered the
education programme for the speech and hearing impaired.
Headmaster of the Dhaka Badhir High School (the government school for the hearing impaired), Aminul Islam, said that the school has 350 students with speech and hearing impairments. All the hearing and speech impaired persons in the country depend on this school, he added.
The government in 2005 allotted this piece of land to the school for a token price of Tk 500,000, said the documents. The land was registered in the name of the school and the school authorities have been paying taxes for the land since then.
According to the records, the district administration on 6 August 2005 measured the land, demarcated the plot and handed it over to the school authorities.
Advocate Taimur Alam Khandker who served as the Chairman of the school’s Managing Committee since 2003 to 2018 said that Haji Salim forcefully occupied the land within a few days after the Awami League led government came into the power following the 2008 general election.
After he (Haji Salim) had grabbed the land the authorities of the school took initiatives several times to recover the land, but they failed, added the former Chairman of the School.
Sources said that this plot is adjacent to the embankment at Sawarighat. There is a petrol pump, Madina Filling Station, on the plot. This filling station belongs to Haji Salim’s Madina Group. Alongside the filling station, there is a workshop and car servicing outlet. There is no signboard of the school anywhere there.
The local people say that the filling station was set up around 2007-08. This originally was low lying marshy khas land, the people said.
It has not been possible to communicate with Haji Salim or his elder son Solaiman Salim about the matter. Advocate Shree Prannath, a counsel for Haji Salim, said a case was under trial over ownership of the land in the 11th Assistant Judge’s Court of Dhaka. So the school authority cannot claim its ownership, added the lawyer. The school’s Headmaster Aminul Islam said, the case was filed on behalf of Haji Salim with forged papers and the court dismissed it.
A case was filed against Haji Salim’s son Erfan Salim for assaulting a naval officer recently. RAB then raided Haji Salim’s house in Lalbagh. Erfan Salim and his bodyguard were arrested.
Since then various accounts of forced occupation by Haji Salim and his family have been emerging. Agrani Bank authorities on October 26 recovered land which had been grabbed by Haji Salim in Old Dhaka’s Maulvibazar. The detective branch (DB) of police has begun interrogating Erfan Salim and his bodyguard.
