With the demand to place their residential address to North Dinajpur district from South Dinajpur, residents of five villages- Kurmanpur, Paschim Sayedpur, Bimalpara, Bejpur and Bhabanipur in South Dinajpur district under the banner of ‘ Dakshin Noi Uttar Chai’ on Wednesday blocked the national highway 34 at Kurmanpur in Itahar of North Dinajpur district.
According to the villagers, they have been organizing the movement to set their permanent address to North Dinajpur since the last 25 years.
According to locals, the protest soon led to a blockade which resulted to huge traffic congestion on the road which was later withdrawn after appearance of the Block Development Oficer Itahar, Raju Lama and Officer in Charge, Itahar police station, N T Bhutiya on the spot.
The irked agitators informed that they were previously residents of West Dinajpur district and then in the year of 1992, Old West Dinajpur district was dived into two districts- Dakshin Dinajpur and Uttar Dinajpur.
Since then these five villages have been placed under South Dinajpur district. “Sadeque Ali, a resident of Kurmanpur said, “In order to do any administrative work we have to move to Balurghat more which is more than 100 kilometres away from our village whereas Karnajora, the district head quarter of Uttar Dinajpur locates around 25 kilometers away from our village.”
“The state government a few years back accepted our demand and included us in North Dinajpur district. However, the apathy of the officials of the district administration has resulted us to get barred from the facility till now,” Mr Ali added. Itahar BDO, Mr Lama said, “We have heard their difficulties. We will soon bring the subject to the notice of the higher officials.”