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The Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s former secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain’s son, Khandaker Akhter Hamid Khan Paban, has allegedly been using the party’s name to grab the post of the president of the capital’s Motalib Plaza Shop Owners’ Association, without taking part in an election.

A number of shop owners made the allegation while the BNP high command repeatedly said that they would take stern action against grabbing and extortion.

Paban’s activities to grab the post began after the country’s political changeover on August 5 with the fall of Awami League regime amid a student-led mass uprising, they alleged.

They said that though it was scheduled to hold the shop owners’ election to form a committee every two years, no election was held after launching the market in 2003. Good Luck Real Estates Limited’s constructed the market.

The people of the party in power always grabbed the posts of the association’s president and general secretary, they alleged.

The shop owners said that they, holding the spirit of the student-led mass uprising, expected that a committee would be formed this time through an election.

They said that the president and general secretary of the present committee, formed in May 2022 without election, were AL leaders and went into hiding after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime.

Within a few days of the fall of AL, Paban and BNP’s peasant wing Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal’s Munshiganj Sadar upazila unit former president Shah Alam began to announce themselves as the president and the general secretary of the committee respectively, several shop owners said.

They also alleged that Paban had been staging showdowns with 30-35 outsiders in the market area frequently and threatening them.

‘We want that the next committee will be formed in an election. The shop owners want to elect their representatives,’ the association’s senior vice-president Mahbubur Rahman Bachchu said.

He alleged that Krishak Dal leader Shah Alam brought Paban to grab the committee using the name of BNP.

‘Paban and Shah Alam are threatening shop owners,’ said Mahbubur, who owns four shops in the market.

Motalib Plaza houses over 600 shops and the former BNP top leader’s son owns one shop.

In the past meeting held recently, Paban and Shah Alam remained silent when shop owners pressed for an election to choose the association leaders, said Mohammad Sabuj, owner of 23 shops in the market.

‘A large number of students and people sacrificed their lives in the recent movement in a bid to establish democracy. We hold their spirit, we want an election to form our committee,’ said another shop owner, Shamim Mollah, also a member of the executive committee of the association.

The association vice-president Mohammad Nurul Islam Talukder who owns five shops in the market echoed Mahbubur, Sabuj and Shamim.

Khandaker Akhter Hamid Khan Paban said that there was no elected committee of the shop owners’ association in and around Motalib Plaza.

He said that the Motalib Plaza market had no guardian now as the association president and general secretary fled the market. ‘We will hold an election within a year after completing necessary reforms.’

Paban said that his brother Khondaker Abdul Hamid Dablu was the founding president of the market committee and his family had contributed a lot to the development of the market.

He said that he neither went to the market with outsiders nor threatened anyone.

‘An election cannot be organised overnight. It requires a lot of time to prepare an appropriate voter list and arrange other requirements,’ Paban claimed.

Shah Alam, also the treasurer of the incumbent committee of the owners’ association, claimed that many shop owners were supporting them.

BNP joint secretary general Shahid Uddin Chowdhury Annie said that they would not allow anyone to use the party’s name to grab any committee.

‘We are not allowing anyone to conduct such activities…If the shop owners submit a complaint to the secretary general, we will take necessary action,’ Annie added.