Desk Report: Locals alleged that timber traders in collaboration with the president of Social Forestation Programme and a union parishad (UP) chairman in Gobindaganj upazila felled over 150 roadside trees without any permission from the authorities concerned, reports The Daily Star.
Under the programme, local people planted over 1,000 Eucalyptus tree saplings along four kilometres of the road between Chawhadapur and Pojoypur villages 12 years ago.
As the trees reached maturity, Sapmara UP Chairman Shakil Ahmed Bulbul and Abdul Karim, president of Social Forestation Committee, sold the trees to local timber traders without any permission of the authorities concerned, local people alleged.
The traders started felling trees from Tuesday and cut down 150 trees, locals alleged, adding that they even felled trees by night and took those to other places.
Ranu Mia, a timber trader of Kaiyaganj in Gobindaganj upazila, said he paid Tk 15 lakh to the UP chairman and purchased 803 roadside trees around two years ago. Last month, they felled a few trees, but the chairman stopped it for some unknown reason, and now he has asked them to cut down trees.
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