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Extortion rampant at Baruhas Mela in Tarash


Published : 16 Apr 2022 09:15 PM

A three-day fair has been held in Baruhas village on the occasion of Baishakh like every year in Tarash of Sirajganj. It is said that the traditional Baruhas fair of Chalan Beel was established about one and a half hundred years ago during the Zamindar period. The fair has become a symbol of the combination of Bengali culture and tradition.

Although it is a three-day fair, it actually lasts for weeks. As the fair had not taken place for the last two years due to the pandemic, this year the fair has been held in a splendid manner.

Visiting the fair on the spot, it was seen that the newly elected chairman of Baruhas Union was using signed tokens to collect illegal rents with his own forces ignoring the government instructions. In many cases, ordinary buyers and sellers were being harassed and humiliated by the people of the chairman's own forces. Many victims have also complained that the chairman's forces were harassing traders in various ways over rent.

According to the complaints of the buyers, although the fair was not officially called, the chairman of Baruhas Union Parishad and his own people managed the local administration and came to the fair to buy sweets and baskets, garlic, onion, ginger, pepper, toys, cosmetics, kites and furniture. They were illegally extorting money from buyers in the name of rent through tokens signed by Chairman Moinul Haque. As a result, many shopkeepers from different areas set up shop in the vicinity of Baruhas village such as Binodpur Bazar, Sachandighi village, Kohit Mor, Hedarkhal, Manoharpur and Dighrira Bazar along Tarash-Singra road for fear of extra rent.Md. Rahmat Ali, a basket trader from Shahjadpur, said that the chairman's people had collected Tk 1,200 from my small shop.