An influential lady adviser in the Mohammad Yunus-led interim regime is suspected to be the recipient of over Taka 80 crore as kickback for facilitating the illegal quarrying of white stones along the banks of the Dholai river in Sylhet’s Bholaganj sub-district.
Informed sources said that the kickback to the adviser is paid by a Sylhet-based Juba Dal leader who is part of an elaborate network that is involved in the illegal multi-crore stone quarry business that has flourished since August 2023. However, the “ravaging” of the banks of the Dholai river turned indiscriminate since August 2024 when the Yunus-led interim regime took charge following the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government earlier the same month.
The alleged role of Bahar Ahmed Rubel, the Juba Dal’s Joint General Secretary in Sylhet, has surfaced in the plunder of the Dholai river white stones. Rubel has denied his involvement in the illegal quarrying and transport of the white stones, which feed a part of the construction business in Bangladesh. He was subsequently suspended from the Juba Dal, an affiliate of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Local media reports indicate that while previously a boat-full of stones would cost Taka 1,500-2,000 – excluding bribes to the police – the rate would shoot up to Taka 5,000-6,000 per boat when sold in the building construction market. However, after August 2024, a “syndicate” run by Rubel operationalised a new “system” that ruled that each boat-full of stones would cost Taka 1,500.
Sources familiar with the business operated by the stone and sand mafia across Bangladesh said that a monthly kickback of Taka 7 crore is paid to the adviser, who otherwise is vocal on issues that have a direct impact on the environment.
Daily wage labourers are employed to load the stones onto barque boats, which transport huge quantities to mills where they are crushed before the chips are sold on the building construction market. However, alongside this method, the syndicate now also uses cutter-suction dredgers to pull out the white stones from the Dholai river bed.
Speaking to Northeast News, a Sylhet-based environmental activist, who sought anonymity, said that “Taka 1,000 crore worth of white stone was quarried over the last one year”, which indicated the involvement of “influential people” in the interim government.
The Dholai river originates in the Atharamura Hill range in India’s Tripura before entering Kamalganj sub-district in the Maulvibazar district of Bangladesh. The 90-km-long river meets the Surma river in Sunamganj.
Local environmentalists Northeast News spoke with said that the ravages of the syndicate have been so destructive that an entire hillock, named Shah Arefin Tila, in Tahirpur sub-district in the Bangladesh side of the Khasi Hills has “fallen prey” to stone quarrying.
As late as July 8 this year, the proprietor of Loobacherra Tea Estate at Kanaighat in Sylhet, alerted the district magistrate to the “illegal quarrying” of stones from the western bank of the Looba river, which was “adversely impacting the tea estate, the local environment as well as the general security of the area”.
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In the representation, Loobacherra Tea Estate’s proprietor, James Louis Ferguson, sought an “immediate and urgent intervention”. However, the district administration has yet to respond to this appeal.
