‘Hey, pedestrians, I am doomed to be executed. I save you by giving you shed and Oxygen. Is there none to save me?’
The quotation with the fervent request has been written in white letters on a red-cloth that is wrapped around a 100-year old tree in Chowhatta area of Sylhet city. Members of Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon and Bhumisantan Bangladesh along with local people have wrapped the red-white clarion call around the tree trunk on last Wednesday morning.
The centurian Raintree situated beside the road at Chowhatta in Sylhet city is known as ‘Chowhattar Boro Gach’ (Large tree of Chowhatta) to the local residents.
Local people complained, after broadening of the Chowhatta-Ambarkhana road, Sylhet City Corporation (SCC) workers were poised to make a roadside flower garden by felling this one-hundred-year old tree.
On October-20, the SCC workers had started to sawn off a large branch of the tree when members of Bhumisantan Bangladesh protested and resisted the move. Afterwards, SCC authorities suspended to fell the tree.
However, making a shade with a red sheet of cloth, a protest meeting was held under the tree. The meeting aiming to save the tree was addressed, among others, by the Founder Director of Language Veteran Motin Uddin Museum of Sylhet Mostafa Shah Zaman Chowdhury, Gen Secretary of BAPA, Sylhet Abdul Karim Chowdury, Coordinator of Bhumisantan Bangladesh Ashraful Kabir, Alamgir Chowdhury and Kamal Ahmed Chowdhury.
Speakers at the protest meeting said, on the plea of implementing Development Projects, SCC has staged a programme to indiscriminate felling of trees.
They mentioned, SCC has taken the decision to make a flower garden by felling the century old tree of Chowhatta but it is possible to make the flower garden by keeping the tree untouched. They further said SSC has other ulterior motive with the felling of the tree and to free the space there.
Alamgir Chowdhury of Chowhatta area said, “I am now 61 and from my early age I am watching the tree with the same height and size.
