The High Court yesterday directed the government to take over the family house of Bangla film icon Suchitra Sen in Pabna within a week and ensure all necessary steps for its protection.
However, before the HC directive came, religious bigots had occupied the house for 24 years. Suchitra Sen along with her family left Pabna a few months before the partition of the sub-continent in 1947.
Over the years successive governments extended the single-year lease Jamaat-e-Islami took of the house in 1987 in phases, ignoring demands from intellectuals and general people to reclaim the house from the clutch of religious fundamentalists, reports our Pabna correspondent.
Finally the HC directive came as a beckon of hope for the local people to have the house reinstituted in accordance with their long-standing demand of turning it into a museum, shedding lights on the life of the heartthrob actress and evolution of Bangla film as well.
"The entire Pabna is happy with the verdict. I believe it is news of joy and hope for every conscious and progressive individual of the country," said Saidul Haque Chunnu, convener of Suchitra Sen Smrity Shangrakkhan Parishad in Pabna, a forum comprising cultural activists and intellectuals to press home their demands.
The HC directive to take appropriate legal action against the grabbers holds great importance for the local people, who witnessed how the house on 21 decimal of land underwent a change in construction as the Imam Gazzali Trust run by Jamaat-e-Islami extended its business in education using the land.
Once accommodating only five brick-built rooms, the house now has extra five corrugated-iron-sheet-made rooms to accommodate about three hundred students of Imam Gazzali Institution, a kindergarten run by the Gazzali trust.
Earlier, the trust ran a high school and college on the compound. The institutions were relocated to their own property at Raghabpur village after those were listed on the MPO.
"We are maintaining the school in Suchitra Sen's residence after taking lease of the land from the district administration," said Abid Hassan, secretary of the Gazzali trust and ameer of Jamaat's municipal unit.
"People labelled the institution as one of Jamaat's organisations, but this is only an educational institution, not an institution of a particular party," he claimed.
However, Jamaat even tried to have the house as its own property in 1991, immediately after the BNP-led alliance assumed power.
The then government could not hand over the house due to some technical difficulties over the land survey but suggested that the trust continue occupying it by renewing the lease every year until the matter is finally settled, Hassan informed.
Against increasing demand of reclaiming the house after the AL-led grand alliance assumed power, the district administration cancelled the lease last year. The kindergarten however challenged the cancellation with the HC, drawing a stay order on operation of the cancellation.
"On receipt of the court order we will take next decision after consulting our counsels," said Aiyub Ali, a teacher of the kindergarten who challenged the cancellation order.
The HC has made the deputy commissioner, superintendent of police and officer-in-charge of Pabna police to act in compliance with its directives and report back in 10 days.
A public interest litigation filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) drew a series of directives from the HC that ruled the government to explain in two weeks why its inaction to take action against the grabbers should not be declared illegal.
The HRPB filed the petition following a report published in Shokaler Khobor on July 13.
Born in April of 1931, Suchitra Sen stayed in the house till a few months before the partition. She made her debut in film with Shesh Kothaay in 1952. The films in which she paired with another icon actor Uttam Kumar became classics in the history of Bangla film.
Suchitra is the first Indian actress to be awarded in an international competition. She received Best Actress award for the movie Saat Paake Bandha in Moscow Film Festival, 1963.
Source : The Daily Star
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