Stone owners in the Utma area of Companiganj upazila in Sylhet have submitted an application to the Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, seeking permission to release and relocate stones extracted under a valid lease nearly six years ago.
The stone owners submitted the application seeking an exemption from auctioning the stones. On Sunday (August 9), local residents also held a protest meeting demanding that the seized stones not be sold through auction.
On July 13, an executive magistrate of the Bangladesh Bureau of Mineral Development, Saikat Raihan, along with the upazila administration, conducted a joint mobile court operation in the Utma area and seized approximately 94,390 cubic feet of stones. The Companiganj upazila administration subsequently issued a notice to sell the seized stones through auction on August 10.
On August 9, local residents submitted a written application to the ministry, urging authorities not to sell the stones through auction.
In their application, the stone owners said they had legally extracted the stones during the 1426–1427 Bangla lease year by paying royalties to the leaseholders. They later stored the stones in piles in Bonpur, Guchhogram and Majhergaon areas of North Ranikhai Union in Companiganj with the intention of selling them at a profit.
They said the administration suspended the stone quarry leases citing environmental and ecological concerns, and the quarries were not leased out again. As a result, local authorities prevented them from transporting the stones they had already extracted and stored, leaving them unable to sell or relocate the stockpiles for years.
The applicants said they were now living in severe hardship after taking loans from various individuals and non-governmental organisations to purchase and collect the stones but being unable to sell or transport them.
They further said that the July 13 mobile court operation resulted in the seizure of around 94,390 cubic feet of their stones, which the Companiganj administration has announced would be sold at auction. If the stones are auctioned, they said, small-scale stone traders would be left financially devastated.
The stone owners therefore appealed to the authorities on humanitarian grounds to refrain from auctioning the stones that had been legally extracted and stored during the valid lease period after payment of the required royalties. They also requested that the seized stones be released and returned to them so they could relocate them.
