Padma Sand Plundered Under Armed Guard Worth Crores
S. M. Ali Ahsan Panna
Along the Padma River, close to the boundaries of Kushtia and Pabna, illegal sand extraction is going on unrestrained despite severe High Court restrictions and administrative crackdowns. Extractors are stealing sand worth around Tk 1 crore every night with the support of armed syndicates and prominent local politicians. They dig over 3.5 lakh cubic feet of sand per day from high-risk areas including Shilaidaha Ghat, Beltola, and Char Tarapur using at least 50 bulk trucks. Then, vehicles are used to transport this huge daily stockpile across the country, thus avoiding all legal and governmental restrictions.
Since legal contracts would have produced at least Tk 14 lakh in government taxes every day, this illegal transaction is costing the state a significant amount of money. Md. Touhid Bin Hasan, Kushtia Deputy Commissioner, said that there aren’t any legal sand quarries in the district at the moment, pointing out that prior licenses were canceled because of illegal extraction. A 30-kilometer section of the Padma River from Goalundo to Paksey is still completely controlled by illegal dredgers, despite a March 2023 High Court judgment that expressly prohibits sand extraction in the area.
The sand syndicates are so obvious that they frequently assault anybody trying to interfere and operate under strong-armed guard. A group of armed people attacked six reporters gathering news in Kushtia Sadar in October 2023 and tried to destroy their motorboat. A violent fight during a raid in the Haripur region earlier in April left six people, including five police officers, injured. Despite the BIWTA’s repeated calls for the local government and police to step in, this violent syndicate is still out of control.
The destruction of the environment is serious and permanent. Mr. Ainun Nishat, an emeritus professor at BRAC University, cautioned that improper dredging changes water flows, resulting in devastating river erosion and the destruction of essential fish breeding grounds. The problem, according to Dr. Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), is an example of a political system where ‘the winner takes all’, pointing out that political changes only affect the beneficiaries. People are calling for the immediate punishment of all masterminds responsible for this continuous devastation due to intense public indignation.
