Hungry amid shutdown, Narayanganj’s poor take protest to streets

Hundreds of poor people, from Narayanganj Sadar upazila's Kashipur Chhoto Ambagan and Chowdhury Bari areas, marched on the streets early on Wednesday demanding food and relief supplies.

However, social distance was not maintained during the protest, local sources said.

The low-income men and women of the Kashipur Chhoto Ambagan area staged a protest demanding relief goods amid the countrywide shutdown that has left many of them without work. These jobless people were starving for the last few days, said sources.

Earlier, some local public representatives of Kashipur Union Parishad took photocopy of these low-income people's national identity card, assuring them that they would get food aid and other assistance soon, said the same sources. 

But when the local representatives returned the photocopy of their national identity card instead of distributing relief on early Wednesday, the spontaneous explosion of anger by the people could not be helped.

Aslam Hossain, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Fatullah Model Police Station, said he heard the news and sent police forces immediately to the spot. "But no untoward incident took place there."

Hamida Khatun, Rubina Akhter, Saleha and Abdus Salam, who joined the protest in the Chowdhury Bari area, said Khandakar Lutfar Rahman Shwapan, the acting chairman of Fatullah Union Parishad, assured them of distributing relief on Wednesday , but he failed to deliver on his promise.

So, at 2pm on Wednesday , they started an hour-long protest in front of Fatullah Model Police Station, demanding food aid.

When contacted at around 9pm, OC Aslam Hossain admitted that poor people staged a protest in front of the police station for relief.

Lutfar Rahman Shwapan, acting chairman of Fatullah Union Parishad and Saifullah Badal, chairman of Kashipur Union Parishad, could not be reached for comments till the filing of this report.