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Sex workers forced to leave Tangail brothel 'silently, for nowhere'

Our Correspondent, Tangail
The 200-year-old Kandapara brothel in Tangail now gives as a deserted look as all the residents - around 1500 sex workers including 927 registered ones, left the red light area on Saturday night and Sunday morning.
They left bag and baggage, without making any complaint to anyone as musclemen backed by a few local leaders of ruling Awami League asked them to do so, sources said.
Contacted over cell phone, Aklima Akter Akhi, president of local sex workers' organisation Nari Mukti Sangha, said some local thugs asked the girls of the brothel to leave it
silently.
"I can't say anything more about the matter as I myself am on the run," she said before disconnecting the phone.
"I had been living at the brothel for the last four years and now I will go to my home in Shariatpur district. I do not know what I will do in future," said Rashida Begum, a sex worker of the brothel, who was waiting at a local bus stand on Monday.
Saleh Mohammed Tanvir, superintendent of police in Tangail, said none including any of the brothel residents lodged any complaint to him in this regard.
"Being informed of the matter, 1 sent a team comprising additional dis-
trict magistrate, district social welfare officer, district women affairs officer and police officers to see the matter on Saturday night but they found the brothel empty," said Mahbub Hossain, deputy commissioner of Tangail.
Shahidur Rahman Khan Mukti, mayor of Tangail municipality, said he heard that the sex workers left the brothel willingly.
Earlier on July 4, the Imam of central Jame-e-Masjid in Tangail during the khutba before the Juma prayers urged eviction of the brothel.
On July 6, several hundred people brought out a procession under the banner of 'anti-social activities prevention committee' in Tangail town and
held a rally in front of the municipality building demanding the same.
The brothel, situated at a place surrounded by the central graveyard mosque, two madrasas and an orphanage in the town, serves as a den of drugs addicts and criminals, and it should be evicted immediately, the speakers said.
The agitators later submitted a memorandum to the Tangail mayor in this regard.
None of the house owners of the brothel and the officials of a few nongovernmental organisations who had been working for the sex workers could be contacted for their comments about the matter.