'Why is govt attention always on marginalised peoples' land?'

Don: "On this day in 2016, three Santal brothers were killed but they did not get justice till today. The killers were identified but never arrested. This five-year-long trial is not moving forward either," former caretaker government's adviser and human rights activist Advocate Sultana Kamal said today. "When justice isn't done for the crimes committed, the state and its people have to bear the stigma. And we as conscious citizens can't allow that to happen. As a nation we are not willing to bear that stigma," she said at a mourning rally of local Santals and Banglees at Kantarmore in Gobindaganj upazila of Gaibandha this afternoon. "Those who run the state cannot rest until justice is served and we will not let them rest. We will repeatedly demand this trial. We want to see our three friends get justice." "We want to see those responsible for the crime get the punishment they deserve," reports our Bogura correspondent quoting Sultana Kamal as saying. Five years ago on this day, three Santal men were killed and many others injured during a clash as police tried to evict an entire Santal community from a piece of land that the people say they got from their ancestors. But the authorities of Rangpur Sugar Mills claimed that it is theirs. The Santals are now facing homelessness again as they are among the nearly 1,500 families who might be evicted to make way for setting up an export processing zone. The Santals have been regularly demonstrating against the planned EPZ. On November 12, 2019, the government decided to establish the EPZ on 1,832.27 acres of land at a governing body meeting of the BEPZA. The EPZ the government plans to establish will make the 1,500 Santal families homeless and they will lose the land where they grow rice and other crops. Sultana Kamal protested and asked, "Why should the Santals leave their Bagda Farm?" "Why such mentality? There is state policy and the prime minister has mentioned in her various speeches that no industry will be allowed on crop lands," she told the rally.