Nilphamari Correspondent :
Trees of a man made forest on land of water development board (WDB) near country’s largest Teesta barrage at Dalia in the dist are being stolen at random but concerned authority seems indifferent though it was created to keep the soil around the barrage strongly bonded ensuring safety by preventing erosion of Teesta river.
The WDB forest at east end of the barrage entitled forest no-1 having area of 33 acres was created in year 1993-1994 where different variety of trees like mahogany, shishi, tick, akashmuni, eucalyptus and others were planted.
It is a part of protection measure for the barrage along with usual river control measures like construction of dams, groins, spurs and so on and WDB with active support of govt forest dept take care of it.
In a recent visit by this correspondent, it was found that there standing only few mother trees as most big trees had already been stolen and some of their trunks left sporadically.
Abdul Kashem, a resident of Sadhur bazaar village close to the forest said that thieves regularly fell and remove trees from the forest at night leaving behind trunks insisting poor people to uproot those at day time to use as fuel and thus wiping out evidence of once presence of trees there.
A number locals on condition of anonymity alleged that a section of dishonest men of WDB and some members of ansars force who posted in a nearby Doani camp to safeguard govt. property were co-operating the thieves to realize vested interest.
Jonayed Hossain, commander of Doani ansar camp while contacted said that there was a tree felling syndicate in the area one year ago which is inactive now due to all time vigilance of his force.
