A tense situation has gripped Korean EPZ in Anwara of the district as outsiders, assisted by a group of sacked workers of the Karnaphuli Shoe Industry (KSI), illegally grabbed its land in the name of a Madrasa and graveyard (Kabarsthan). They also threatened its managing director and other senior officials of dire consequences, sources said. The local administration, some local businessmen and public representatives have apparently launched a campaign against the Korean EPZ to create grounds for taking its land. They allege that the KEPZ officials did not allow the villagers to bury the dead people in the graveyard inside the area, use its walkways and the authority has failed to develop the land as expected. Sources said some identified miscreants have attempted to grab 11 acres of Korean EPZ’s acquired land at five spots by breaking open the gate number 2 of the KSI, a land earmarked for KEPZ IT Park, in the south block under Anwara Boirag mouza on February 28. The local villagers at Anwara and West Patiya and the security personnel of the KEPZ are engaged in repeated chase and counter-chase over the land boundary of the EPZ while development work has faced obstruction due to different bureaucratic tangles. “The miscreants have been attempting to grab the KEPZ lands since February 21, the government holiday on account of International Mother Language Day, and keep on obstructing normal activities in the country’s largest export processing zone until today (Sunday),” said managing director of the Korean EPZ Mohammad Hasan Nasir. He said that a small group of local people under the leadership of Boirag Union Parishad chairman Nawab Ali and Baro Uthan Union Parishad chairman Didarul Alam had forcefully constructed a brick wall on 1.5 acres of the KEPZ’s acquired land in the Guapanchak mouza and illegally grabbed the land on last Friday. The local influential people supported by sand smugglers have felled down many trees on the KEPZ land and raised barbed wire fence around the area, KEPZ authority said. “We had as many as 13 meetings with deputy commissioner of Chittagong and requested him to demarcate the land for graveyard to avoid such conflicts with the locals but officials in the local administration are yet to do so although the demarcation of the graveyard was supposed to be done within a month of registration of land,” he said. Hasan Nasir was briefing reporters on the latest situation of the KEPZ at its conference room on Sunday. DGM (admin and HR) Major (retired) Sadin Tayyeb, presented details of physical condition of the land after illegal occupation at South Block of the KEPZ. Legal advisor Advocate ATM Aftab Uddin was also present. Some 50 people were seen demonstrating outside main entrance of the KEPZ during presence of reporters inside the area and were chanting slogans against MD of the company. “The problem is not that serious. We want cooperation of all concerned including the local people and want that our investment is not discouraged. They must allow us to do everything needed to build an industrial zone in the KEPZ following all the administrative rules permissible under industrial policy 2010,” he said. He said officials of the global leading electronic company Samsung visited the KEPZ site and wanted to make a huge investment in this export processing zone in 2013 but they did not proceed further as the Deed of Transfer of the KEPZ land has not yet been made. “Foreign investors will first see in what state the land is. They will come only when they see there are no legal complexity about the land,” he said.
