Selim Reza, Sirajul Islam Shishir & Abdul Latif Sarker:

Agitating students and public on Sunday staged demonstrations in front of the Raiganj Upazila Parishad in Sirajganj demanding removal of the upazila engineer for alleged corruption and irregularities in different development projects.

The demonstrators held a rally and brought out a procession that marched several streets of the upazila headquarters. The students and public also jointly observed a sit-in programme in front of the UNO office to press home their demands.

Sources said, students from different educational institutions and people from several villages in the upazila under the banner of Anti-discrimination Students Movement gathered at the mentioned place at around 10:00am and staged the demonstrations chanting several slogans against the officers and employees of the local upazila engineer’s office.

Student Representative of Anti-discrimination Student Movement Foysal Biswas, student leader Fahim Biswas, Sabbir Ahmed, founder of The Alfa Academy Asadullah Khan Sajal, Chhatra Dal leader Fardin Hasan Muzahid and Morshed Alam among others took part in the agitation programme.

During the demonstrations, the speakers said, Tamanna Rahman, Upazila Engineer of the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) in Raiganj and her associates have been involved in several corruptions and irregularities for long due to lack of proper monitoring by the higher authorities.

Relevant contractors of several projects in collaboration with the upazila engineer Tamanna Rahman and her staffs are engaged in implementing projects with substandard materials including below quality of sands, rods, bricks and brick-chips.

Most of the road construction and repairing works are going on at snail’s pace due to negligence of the contractors and the concerned officials. There are huge allegations that, they have been using contaminated materials in the construction works violating regulation of the schedules. But, no step has been taken against them so far even after submitting several verbal complaints to the local administrations, they said.

The demonstrators also condemned the incident of offering bribe to the protesters by the men of contractors and the concerned engineer requesting not to go in any agitation against them.

They revealed that, the concerned engineer Tamanna Rahman has allegedly accumulated huge amount of money as bribe from the concerned contractors for providing opportunities in context of performing below standard works. Besides, she often remains absence in her office on several excuses. As a result, most of the service seekers are being deprived of proper services from the office day after day. Due to the engineer and her employees’ massive irregularities, the agitating students and general people urged the authorities concerned to take immediate action against them. They also demanded action against the concerned contractors for their alleged irregularities and below standard works. They threatened for tougher agitation in future, if the necessary steps are not taken shortly.

After the demonstrations, the protesters also submitted a memorandum to Md. Humyun Kabir, UNO of Raiganj upazila seeking drastic action in this regard.

At that time, the UNO Humayun Kabir also assured them to take necessary steps as soon as possible after investigating into the allegation.

“The matter will be informed to the high-ups for the necessary action. If the allegations are probed, the involved officials must be brought to the book,” the UNO said.

While this correspondent attempted to contact with the Engineer Tamanna Rahman for her comment over cell phone, she did not respond.

Saiful Islam, Executive Engineer of LGED in Sirajganj told The Daily Sky that, “I have heard about the demonstrations conducted by students-public in Raiganj. Drastic action would be taken after investigating into the matter.”