#Title

Land scam by AL men ‘may be true’
FROM PAGE 1
found that 63.549 acres of land in Laxmipur Mouza no. 115, selected for the university, were heavily overpriced.
The Chandpur Deputy Commissioner’s office began the CSTU land acquisition in May 2021. The DC office estimates that at the artificially hiked rate, the government would have to pay about Tk 553 crore when the actual price of the land is about Tk 193 crore.
This unusually huge gap was discovered by comparing prices of the acquired and non-acquired lands in the same area. The estimate by the DC office is based on the immediate past 12 months’ average land price in the area.
For instance, a 0.99 acre of the proposed land was sold for Tk 23.75 lakh at Tk 24 lakh an acre in different times between May and July 2019. A year later, about 0.31 acre of that property was sold for Tk 1.24 crore, at around Tk 4 crore per acre, according to the land deeds.
However, land prices beyond the acquisition area under the same mouza increased only slightly since 2019.
Some local ruling party men were allegedly behind this sharp increase in prices before the acquisition began.
Chairman of Laxmipur union Selim Khan, also the Awami League president of the union unit, and his family members bought about 14.46 acres of land for Tk 38.16 crore between June 2020 and April 2021, according to the deeds.
Besides, Chairman of Chandpur’s Faridganj upazila Jahidul Islam purchased 1.73 acres at Tk 3.5 crore; Vice-president of Chandpur Sadar upazila Ayub Ali Bepari bought about 1 acre at Tk 2.45 crore; Vice-president of Chandpur District unit of Awami League Dr Jawadur Rahim Wadud, who is also brother of Education Minister Dipu Moni, purchased about 0.99 acre at Tk 2.71 crore and the minister’s Personal Officer Tutul Mazumder bought 0.4 acre for Tk 1.13 crore, the papers show.
All of them bought the land in one year from May 2020, and there are allegations that some land owners were paid much less than the amount mentioned in the land deeds.
There are also allegations that Selim Khan forced locals to sell their properties, but he refuted them.
Wishing to be unnamed, a labourer said Selim took about 45 decimals of his inherited farmland in exchange for 30 decimals of land in another area.
He was given a simple choice: either hand over the land willingly or lose it, the labourer said.
“We gave the land out of fear,” he said, adding that he was yet to get the 30 decimals of land that Selim had promised.
An official of the sub-registrar office of Chandpur Sadar upazila said in the last one year, no one but Selim Khan and his men could register lands in the particular area.
“Selim Khan has control over the sub-registrar office. People had to sell land to him or give him the power of attorney over their lands,” he said.
Talking to The Daily Star recently, Deputy Attorney General Kazi Mynul Hassan also said that a section of influential individuals, including Salim Khan and his family members, inflated the price of the 62.5 acres of land in Chandpur where the university is planned to be built.
PRE-FIXED
The proposal for acquiring the land came with pre-fixed Mouza and ledger (dag) numbers, according to a Chandpur DC office letter to the land ministry on November 16, 2021.
The CSTU VC, who had sent a letter to the DC office requesting it to acquire land for the university, said the education ministry gave the administration approval along with the specific ledger numbers.
“I have no part in this. You’ll see that the total land size is 62.549 acres; neither 63 acres nor 62 acres. It is only possible after calculation of the exact land volume in the ledgers,” he said.
Additional Secretary (development) of the Secondary and Higher Education Division Belayet Hossain Talukdar said, “That’s not correct. It is the DC office that keeps the land records.”
However, Selim Khan in a letter on January 17, 2021, requested the education minister to acquire 13.83 acres of land under ledger numbers 2132-2153; 2155, 2160-2185 and 2193-2199 for the university.
He sent the letter four months after the enactment of the CSTU Act on September 9, 2020.
On the same day, Dipu Moni forwarded the letter to the education secretary with a note saying: “The two pieces of land are adjacent to each other. It may be good if the land can be acquired for the university. Take measures.”
Later, the land was earmarked for student dormitories.
Contacted, Selim Khan said he had bought the land by paying taxes and following legal procedures and did not force anyone to sell.
Asked why he had bought so much land in a short period at a hefty price, he said he would not comment on the matter because there was a writ petition pending before the court over the issue.
In late January, when different media reported foul play by local ruling party leaders close to the education minister over the land acquisition, Dipu Moni told a press conference that she has close political relations with Selim Khan.
“He [Selim] is president of Awami League’s Laxmipur union unit and chairman of the union… There are 20 chairmen in my constituency. As an MP, I stand by the chairmen in their joy and sorrow,” she said.
“I have good relations with them in the sense that they come to me for different administrative purposes and need my recommendations. I also attend their programmes regularly,” she added.
Jawadur Rahim, brother of the education minister, said he bought the land to build a hospital and a retirement home.
“I sold the land to Selim Khan considering the conflict of interest as my sister is education minister,” he said, adding that he transferred the ownership on December 6, 2021.
Education minister’s Personal Officer Tutul said that he did not show the land in his wealth statement.
“I get a small amount in salary. It is not taxable. I bought the land borrowing money from my relatives,” he claimed.
On Monday, Dipu Moni told The Daily Star the allegations of price manipulation “may be true”.
“It is not possible [for me] to know everything about a person like where he buys his land,” she said over the phone, referring to the frenzy of large-scale land purchase by some AL men to make hefty sums through alleged deception.
The minister said there should be an impartial probe by a government agency to get to the bottom of the reported scam.
Regarding CSTU VC’s request for funds to complete the land acquisition, she said she already issued directives to release the estimated fund.
Contacted, Anti-Corruption Commission Commissioner Dr Md Mozammel Haque Khan said, “In many cases, we’ve seen foul play taking place before land acquisitions. Permanent structures are built overnight to pocket more money in compensation.”
Asked whether the ACC would probe the matter, he said, “Upon receiving specific allegations, we’ll look into whether they bought the land with money beyond known sources of income… But it does not mean we’ll sit idle and wait for the allegations to be lodged,” he said.
National Board of Revenue Member (Audit, Intelligence and Investigation) Pradyut Kumar Sarkar said the board will launch an inquiry to find out whether the buyers evaded taxes and disclosed the ownership of the land in their tax returns.

EC to hold
FROM PAGE 1
were planning to invite around 30 educationists for the dialogue including Dhaka University Professor Emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury, DU Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam, former DU Vice Chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddiqui, and writer and former Shahjalal University of Science and Technology Prof Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, DU VC Prof Md Akhtaruzzaman, North South University VC Prof Atiqul Islam, DU Professor Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, Jahangirnagar University teachers Dilara Zaman and AL Masud Hasanuzzaman.
The EC is taking the steps to hold the dialogue when the BNP and several other political parties refrained from taking part in its formation process.
The parties did not join the dialogue with President Abdul Hamid on forming the search committee that recommended names to appoint the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners.
They also did not proposed any names to the search committee for forming the next EC.