A part of Sadeeq Agro farm was demolished during an eviction drive conducted by the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) in the Mohammadpur area today. The drive began around 10:30 am.
Authorities found that the farm was illegally occupying a section of the Ramchandrapur canal.
Sadeeq Agro recently grabbed public attention after selling a goat for Tk 15 lakh.
A video of the transaction that went viral on Facebook, shows the son of Matiur Rahman, a former National Board of Revenue (NBR) official, purchasing the goat.
Matiur Rahman has since faced severe criticism amid allegations of acquiring illegal wealth amounting to thousands of crores of taka, with purported investments in Singapore, the United States, Canada, and the UAE.
Witnesses said, most of the structures, including one wall of the main building of Sadeeq Agro, was built after occupying a canal, said Dhaka North City Corporation sources.
"When we visited here in the morning, Sadeeq Agro authorities claimed the building has valid documents. After that we checked the documents again but we found that the building has been built occupying the canal site (illegally)," said Motakabbir Ahmed, the regional executive officer and executive magistrate of Dhaka North City Corporation Region-5.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mahbub Hasan, executive magistrate of Dhaka North City Corporation, said that a letter was sent from the city corporation to the DMP for police deployment during the eviction drive.
The letter signed by Mohammad Mahe Alam, chief property officer of Dhaka North, reads, "The illegal constructions by Sadeeq Agro Limited on canal and road land, along with other illegal structures in the vicinity of Mohammadpur embankment under Zone-5 of Dhaka North City, will be evicted. It is requested to take necessary measures to send 3 platoons of male police and 1 platoon of female police to Nagar Bhaban, Gulshan-2 at 10:00am on Thursday."
They were given notice earlier, but the farm authorities ignored the warnings, said the city corporation.
The owner of Sadeeq Agro farm is Imran Hossain, president of Bangladesh Dairy Farmers Association (BDFA).
The land is owned by someone named Abdul Rashid Talukder. The place is looked after by Abdul Rashid's brother Abdul Alim.
Sadeeq Agro had taken the land on lease. Imran renewed the lease for three years on April 1 this year.
Abdul Alim said, "The amount of land we have here is 4.96 decimal. Before this, our boundaries were determined by the Water Development Board and the City Corporation."
The goat saga
The controversy surrounding Mushfiqur Rahman Ifat and his notorious goat purchase began when he made a Facebook post about him buying the goat for an initial amount of Tk15 lakh.
However, people started questioning the source of the money when Ifat's father Matiur's name came up. Matiur Rahman who is a former National Board of Revenue (NBR) member, took a strange route when faced with his son's extravagant expenditure, claiming Mushfiqur wasn't even his child.
When this claim was easily refuted, Imran returned to the scene.
This time, the Sadiq Agro chairman changed his narrative.
He claimed the goat remained unsold and that Ifat had only paid a booking amount of Tk1 lakh without taking delivery.
Ifat countered these claims, accusing Imran of staging a "drama" using him.
By this time, authorities had begun looking into Matiur's wealth.
He was removed from his post as president of the NBR Customs, Excise and VAT Appellate Tribunal – the first time such a move had been made against an NBR tribunal president.
Matiur was then attached to the Internal Resources Division (IRD) of the finance ministry, but wasn't given any specific designation in his new role, effectively making him an Officer on Special Duty (OSD).
A process began to also remove him from the board of Sonali Bank.
An ACC investigation, which officially began on 4 June, is also looking into 55 bighas of land in Pubail under his name, alongside a park, more 300 bighas of land, a shoe factory, expensive cars and homes parked under his or his relative's names.
Then a Dhaka court imposed a travel ban on Ifat's father, Matiur Rahman, a former member of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), and his family on June 24.
However, reports suggest that both Ifat and his father have already left the country.
