In an unprecedented manifestation of hatred, the lawyers of Joypurhat Bar Samity asked Jatiya Adivasi Parishad (JAP) to replace 26 water glasses which some Adivasi people used to drink water on Thursday.
This has deeply hurt the entire indigenous community in Joypurhat.
“The incident was unexpected in a modern civilised society,” said JAP Secretary General Rabindranath Soren, who was one among the Adivasis who drank water in one of those glasses.
Witnesses said several hundred Adivasi people of Joypurhat brought out a procession to the deputy commissioner’s (DC) office in the district town from Durgapur upazila on Thursday, demThaanding a separate land commission for indigenous people and arrest of land grabbers, among others.
They reached the town around 3:30pm, marching a 10km distance from Durgapur and had lunch boxes prepared in Joypurhat Bar Samity’s canteen. Around 250 Adivasis had lunch outside the canteen and used the canteen’s glasses to drink water, said organisers of the procession.
As soon as the Bar Samity lawyers learned the incident, they reached the Samity office and shouted at the canteen manager Nurul Islam since he allowed the Adivasis to use the glasses.
Amid pressure from the lawyers, the canteen manager handed over 26 glasses to Adivasi leader Advocate Babul Rabi Das, also lawyer of Joypurhat district court and himself a member of Joypurhat Bar Samity.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Babul Das, also president of Joypurhat unit JAP, said he received the water glasses from the canteen Thursday. He said he would pay for the glasses.
Rabindranath Soren said the lawyers who were meant to protect human rights forced the canteen manager to demand replacement of the glasses.
General Secretary of Joypurhat Bar Samity Advocate Abu Nasir Mohammad Shamim Inam, however, claimed that he was “unaware” of the incident and said he only protested the cooking of launch in the canteen for others.
Similar claim was made by Advocate Yunusar Rahman, a member of the Bar Samity, who runs the canteen as lesee. “I just heard it from you (The Daily Star correspondent),” he said, when contacted.
-With The Daily Star input
