::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

Special Feature

Bogra dam-cut A-feud leads to a calamity

It was at a quarter to three in the morning on July 14th that a part of the dam near Shimulbari suddenly gave way. The villagers were in deep sleep when the Shaharbari, Shimulbari, Chuniapara, Gosaipara, and Godakhali villages were suddenly hit by floodwater. The rushing water not only inundated a vast area but also left many dead in its wake. Four thousand homes were washed away in that sudden surge of water. The unexpected calamity originated from a break at the dam that protects a vast area and its people. The most shocking revelation is that it was the work of the henchmen of a ruling party leader. According to newspaper reports, a petty feud between two local Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders led one to cut a gash in the dam letting the surging water to gush through it.

As the current was strong, the villagers did not get much time to save their belongings. Many stood by while they witnessed their homes being taken away by the sudden deluge. Even while reading the newspaper reports, the aftermath of this human-induced calamity seemed like an apocalyptic vision. Whether the perpetrators sensed that their act could have the potential to take such a devastating turn is not the point here. For any human it is nerve racking even to think that a dispute could lead to deluge of such catastrophic proportions. Being the leaders of the community, how could the people suspected of carrying out the act of sabotage not think of the consequences? The very act serves as an example of how politics has become an abstract game on an imaginary chessboard just to get an upper hand in every occasion for the people at the helm. Although there were denials from the BNP bastion regarding their leaders having a hand in the dam-cut incident, the circumstantial evidence points to sabotage.

Call it sabotage or 'fate' of the villagers, the calamity cost dearly both in terms of lives and property. Over 3,000 people lost their homes. While around 60 villagers remained missing, death counts, two days after the dam-cut, stood at six. The local leaders claimed the dam at Shimulbari of Dhunat Thana needed fixing, although the observation of the engineers belonging to the Water Development Board (WDB) refuted this. They denied having seen any volatile point in the dam, especially in that area near Shimulbari. The water level in the Jamuna river was flowing not only over the danger level, but also in fierce velocity and the cut had made the water to rush in and level off the part of the dam resulting in the immediate flooding. A Daily Star report said it was a 500 metre swathe that caused the devastating flood. The report also blamed the alleged saboteurs with links to two pro-BNP groups contractors for cutting the dam open.

Pitiably, while 3,000 people moved onto higher ground after having lost everything they possessed, government response to the emergency situation was lukewarm. One day after the incident, BBC Radio reported that the army was called out to the flood-affected areas. But the local administration and police could not confirm it. In fact the Officer in Charge, Zulfiker Ali, bluntly said to a reporter on the night of July 15 that he had not hear about such a decision.

It was not until July 17 that the reports could catch up to the scale of devastation resulting from the embankment breach. A Daily Star report put the figure of marooned people to 5.5 lakh. Three days went by without retrieval of the six bodies that had washed away on that fateful night. Another 60 people who went missing remained so as no search drive was conducted.

While BNP and the local authorities were trying their best to prove that it was not an act of sabotage, the reports in most dailies confirmed that it was. A Prothom Alo report said that the conflict between Belal Hossain Babu and Jahurul Islam Nannu, the two BNP leaders, caused this breach in the dam that took a heavy toll on lives and property. Rashedul Islam, an ASO of the Water Development Board (WDB) filed a case with the Dhunat thana. In the FIR he clearly stated the reason to be an act of sabotage. As for the two BNP leaders, they were as usual pointing to each other and were also trying to raise an accusing finger to the WDB officials. Many villagers were of the opinion that it is to frame Nannu, Babu, the Chairman, has made his men do this. This was the local scenario; on the national level the Deputy Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Asadul Habib Dulu asked the WDB officials to retract their comment.

While talking to journalists at Bogra Circuit House on July 15, the deputy minister confirmed that "the embankment wrecked in a natural process". But this did not deter the WDB officials from repeating the fact that a vested quarter had cut the dam open, which clearly was an act of sabotage. Dhunat Sub-Division Engineer Mosharraf Hossain told newsmen that the point in question was not so weak that it would break down naturally. The WDB board officials said that there were 30 vulnerable points on the embankment that stretches 262 kilometres from the northern district of Kurigram to Pabna, "but none of them broke".

The local lawmaker Golam Mohammad Siraj put a different twist to the whole affair. His contradictory statement cleared the cloud that many were set to create. He first said that the feud did not lead to the sabotage but delayed the repair and then he went on to add, "The sabotage would not have taken place if the WDB had allowed Babu to do the (repair) work."

Hungry villagers in Bogra scramble for relief that has long eluded them

Imagine a small feud over the contract of repair work leading to a huge disaster; this can happen only in Bangladesh. Moreover, the dreadful reality is that, persons who are willing to doggedly pursue their personal and petty interest by endangering lives of a huge population ride power year after year without having to account for their misdeeds.