Treat evicted Santals with care

All citizens are equal in the eye of the law and people belonging to small ethnic or religious groups should be specially protected

It is good to know that the home ministry yesterday declared that it would take measures to build shelters for the evicted Santals. Many of the 1,500 Santal families who have been evicted from Shahebganj-Bagda farm of Rangpur Sugar Mill at Gobindganj are languishing in the open sky and should be treated in a very human way. On November 6, following a clash over land dispute between Santals and sugar mill workers, these families were evicted from this place. 
According to a report of this newspaper yesterday, even though many of the families did not have food for succor, they refused to take government relief. Children of these families could not go to schools because their books were burnt during the clash. Their only demand was they wanted to return to their homes.
It was learnt from a report of another newspaper that the government, in fact, had a plan to evict the Santals from the place for a long time and the planned drive could have been taken place any time. If it were so, there should have been enough rehabilitation support prepared beforehand. Santals are an ethnic minority of the country and they add to the varieties of Bangladesh’s population. Moreover, for many reasons including the natural ones such as flood, cyclone and river erosion people of this country are becoming rootless. Now these evicted Santals may join the procession of the rootless people also, if they are not take proper care of.
There is also an allegation that though Santals do not possess the said land, some land grabbers are using this small ethnic group to possess the land. However, it is the responsibility of the government to bring to light the reality and settle the matter in such way that these marginalized people would not be left in a helpless condition for a long time. It is also necessary to make an objective probe as to who were responsible for killing and injuring the Santals.
  All citizens are equal in the eye of the law and people belonging to small ethnic or religious groups should be specially protected so that these people should not feel vulnerable, any way. It is expected that the government would take all the necessary measures to rehabilitate the Santals as soon as possible.   

 

Treat evicted Santals with care

All citizens are equal in the eye of the law and people belonging to small ethnic or religious groups should be specially protected

It is good to know that the home ministry yesterday declared that it would take measures to build shelters for the evicted Santals. Many of the 1,500 Santal families who have been evicted from Shahebganj-Bagda farm of Rangpur Sugar Mill at Gobindganj are languishing in the open sky and should be treated in a very human way. On November 6, following a clash over land dispute between Santals and sugar mill workers, these families were evicted from this place. According to a report of this newspaper yesterday, even though many of the families did not have food for succor, they refused to take government relief. Children of these families could not go to schools because their books were burnt during the clash. Their only demand was they wanted to return to their homes. It was learnt from a report of another newspaper that the government, in fact, had a plan to evict the Santals from the place for a long time and the planned drive could have been taken place any time. If it were so, there should have been enough rehabilitation support prepared beforehand. Santals are an ethnic minority of the country and they add to the varieties of Bangladeshs population. Moreover, for many reasons including the natural ones such as flood, cyclone and river erosion people of this country are becoming rootless. Now these evicted Santals may join the procession of the rootless people also, if they are not take proper care of. There is also an allegation that though Santals do not possess the said land, some land grabbers are using this small ethnic group to possess the land. However, it is the responsibility of the government to bring to light the reality and settle the matter in such way that these marginalized people would not be left in a helpless condition for a long time. It is also necessary to make an objective probe as to who were responsible for killing and injuring the Santals. All citizens are equal in the eye of the law and people belonging to small ethnic or religious groups should be specially protected so that these people should not feel vulnerable, any way. It is expected that the government would take all the necessary measures to rehabilitate the Santals as soon as possible.