The New Nation - Internet Edition

Our Correspondent, Thakurgaon

Upazila chairman of the Sadar upazila Sultanul Ferdous was harassed centering toll collection at a whole sale shop at Gobindanagar of the town on Thursday.

After the incident a protest march paraded the town and the situation in the ton was tense since then.

A wholesale market of perishable goods was established on lands of sugarcane cultivators at Gobindanagar about eight or nine years ago. Later the wholesale market were expanded and spread on both sides of the road. Thakurgaon Municipality started collection tolls through annual lease system. Later, the wholesalers samity filed a case against toll collection. The court imposed a bar on collection of toll from the wholesale market and tender process was closed after the court barrier. After the end of the tenure of the lease, the municipality floated a tender. The wholesalers samity then filed another case in the court. The tender process were stopped after imposition of bar by the court. Since toll collection continued, the samity leaders on May 14 shut the wholesale market.

Both the sides engaged in hot exchange on the decision in th morning of yesterday and some terrorists beat the leaders of the samity. At one stage they harassed the upazila chair Sultanul ferdous Namra.

The protest march was brought in the afternoon by the Jatiya Party(JP) Namra Chowdhury termed toll collection as illegal at the instruction of municipality.

Meanwhile, Shahed Kamal Chowdhury, Mayor of the municipality said toll was collected not from the samity lands, but the wholesale markets out side the samity market.

The district administration has formed a seven-member committee headed by additional district magistrat to settle the issue. The committee will sit in a meeting on next Monday.