Tentultala Ground Protest

Photo: Collected Syeda Ratna and her son Isa Abdullah after being released from police station

Mother, son detained for 12 hours for protesting against construction of police station on playground

She was taken to the police station from Tentultala ground on Sunday (April 24) morning.

In the morning, Syeda Ratna was protesting against the construction of the building on the playground and she went live on Facebook against it that time. She was detained during the Facebook live.

According to the locals of Kalabagan, 1 Bigha of land in Tentultala ground was once owned by a Bihari, who never returned to the country after the 1971 war of independence. Local children and teenagers used to play on that ground.

The government has allotted a police station on this vacant land registered as khas land (government owned fallow land, where nobody has property rights). Since then, there has been a demand to keep the place empty for sports.

Although there is a crisis of playgrounds in different areas of the capital, there are a playground of City Corporation in Kalabagan. That field is located next to Kalabagan bus stand.

Describing the incident, Syeda Ratna's daughter Sheuti Shahgufta said, "Trucks came to the ground on Saturday midnight to dump construction materials like bricks and surkhi. From morning, bricks and surkhi were thrown in the ground. My mother came out at around 10 am on Sunday and went live on Facebook from the ground against the construction works. Then police put my mother in a police van and took her to the police station."

"Around 10:53 am, my younger brother Isa Abdullah called me and told me that police had detained my mother. After saying this, he disconnected the phone. When I called him back, he said police had detained him too. After that he again disconnected the phone. Since then my brother's phone was switched off," she said.

The mother and son were released 12 hours after the detention.