::: Star Insight :::

Journey through Bangladesh

From Hobiganj

Remains of a Plane

Ujjal Das

AT the time I must have been seven or eight years old. I saw something blazing across the sky. I ran to the other side of the lake, which was getting all hot. We couldn't stand anywhere close to it. We could all feel the intensity of the fire. Until the flame died down we didn't know what it was that was burning. A father and son who were fishing at the lake at the time died," said Ansar Mia, 79, from the village of Kaliarbhanga.

According to the residents of the village, one morning about 70 years ago an airplane crashed into Nabiganj upazila. Two people died on the spot.

Recently, some remains of the ill-fated aircraft have been found lying around. The huge metal part lies there, some of it above ground, some of it buried under. No numbers or words have been found inscribed on it. Locals have plenty of curiosity about these objects.

Bajlu Miya from nearby Srimatpur village owns a piece of land. 37-year-old Saidul Miya works on his land. When asked about the object in the field, he said, "I heard from my dad. 60 or 70 years ago a big airplane caught fire and fell into this land. When I was younger I saw a lot of people cut off chunks of metal from it. It was bigger back then. If you look around the houses in this area you might even find some of the pieces."

Meanwhile, Niranjan Namashudra, 55, from the village of Khairiya said, "within 5-7 years of the airplane crash an object which probably came off the plane exploded, killing one person. A bunch of people from the village got together in an attempt to move that object but they were unable to move it even a little bit."

Union Chairman Musharraf Hossain said, "this happened really close to my house. I've been seeing this object since I was a child. I don't think anybody knows what really happened till today. There is probably some story behind it. The experts have to come forward and piece together the story of this crash. Us locals will be more than enthusiastic about all this of course."