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Locals looting antique boat

MORSHED ALI KHAN and SOHRAB HOSSAIN
A group of local people are looting precious brass sheets from joints of the ancient boat that has recently surfaced from beneath the sandy beach of Kuakata.
The wooden boat, believed to be belonging to the first Rakhaine settlers from Arakan province in Myanmar over 200 years ago, is now attracting hundreds of visitors.
This historic boat must be protected at any cost, villagers said.
While the Department of Archaeology is yet to send any official to the spot, Dedary Alom Maksud Chowdhury, upazila executive officer of Kalapara and administrator for Kuakata municipality, has formally asked the Kuakata police to keep an eye on the wooden boat so none can dismantle it.
But residents of the area said thieves were slowly dismantling the boat by stealing the joints which were made of brass. The boat was found last Friday on the beach near the tamarisk garden during the low tide.
The boat is 72 feet long and 22.5 feet wide and only two feet of its upper portion has emerged from the sandy beach. Salim Akon, 42, of Kuakata, said a similar boat was found on the beach 25 years ago and a gang looted everything, including its timber.
Uchasi Matubbar, 70, a leader of the Rakhaine community in Kuakata, said that over 150 Rakhaine families had come to the area, fleeing atrocities in Myanmar in 1784.
"Those people on 50 boats fled the torture of Bodpaya who had defeated the king of Arakan province Thamada and had taken over power. This boat might be one of those," said Uchasi. The government must take immediate steps to protect and preserve it in a museum, he added.
Afroza Khan Mita, assistant director of the archaeology department, told The Daily Star that one from the department's Khulna office would soon go to Kuakata to assess whether or not it was a matter of ethnic antiquity.
"Meanwhile, we are asking the local authorities to protect the boat," said Mita.
The boat seems very old and is made of timber of Gorjon tree. The wooden body is covered by brass plates. Rumours have abounded in Kuakata that the plates are made of gold, spurring thieves to steal those.
Abu Bakor Siddique, additional superintendent of police in Patuakhali, said they would protect the boat until the archaeologists arrived.
According to Mostafa Majid, author of "Bangladesher Rakhaine", Rakhaine families had sailed 50 wooden boats through the treacherous sea and reached Rangabali island under Patuakhali district. They were the first settlers in the region covered at the time by thick mangrove forests and wild animals.