Fined Tk 1 lakh for cutting earth and sand without permission, still selling at Tk 750 a truckload by night

The roughly 500-metre Hasimpur embankment on the Padma in Jagannathpur union, Kumarkhali, Kushtia, was built by the government 20 years ago. Locals say earth and sand had never been cut there before. This time a former union-level political leader started cutting earth and sand with an excavator. He says he is legally digging a pond on his own land and that the work has gone on for about a month. According to locals, each truckload of earth and sand sells for Tk 750 and the excavator is hired at Tk 130, and more than a hundred truckloads leave every night for different places. On 19 April a mobile court fined him Tk 1 lakh for illegally cutting earth and sand. He claims the assistant commissioner (land) fined him by mistake. Since the fine, work stops by day but runs from evening through the night; his explanation is that trucks on the road by day disrupt traffic. Residents are angry because the embankment, a village road and several thousand bighas of surrounding farmland are now at risk. The upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) said that even on privately owned land there is no scope to cut earth or sand without permission, and that a drive would soon be carried out and action taken.