Of a 'crazy'man, 2.5 katha land

Habibur Rahman Jewel, 45, has developed a symbiotic relationship with his birthplace. It is a small 2.5 katha plot in the capital's Gendaria where an old, tin-shed house once stood. What remains of it now are piles of dust, brick chunks and rubble all around.

His family had deserted it a good six years ago. But repeated requests from his family, ominous threats from a neighbour, a raging sun, torrential rain, numbing cold -- nothing could move him so much as an inch from the place where he was born and brought up.

Regarded "crazy" by all, Jewel has remained mentally challenged for the most part of his life. So may be he is not

even aware that his actions have staved off several attempts to grab this land over the past few years! May be he has never understood the value of this land in terms of money. Or may be a birthplace is not just a place to him; may be it has rather an aura of sanctity in his world.

When this correspondent paid him a visit on SK Das Lane, Jewel was having dinner in a room that had no roof and was reduced to skeletons of walls partly demolished. While he was eating, his cousin Shafiq Alam was standing by the side of his makeshift bed, which was nothing more than a few bed sheets covering a pile of brickbats!

Jewel doesn't speak much. But when he does, his mumbling produces sounds that don't make much sense.

"What brings me here is this forsaken and crazy Jewel," said Shafiq.

When Jewel's mother was alive, she brought him meals thrice a day. After she died, Jewel's elder sister Mahmuda has taken over, Shafiq told this correspondent.

Jewel's family had engaged a real estate company to replace their tin-shed house with an apartment building in 2009. The company, accordingly, put up a boundary wall and demolished most parts of the house to initiate construction work, but Jewel did not leave.

After that the next door neighbour came up with the story that one of his predecessors had bought this land from Jewel's great grandfathers. On top of filing a case, he secured a stay order from the High Court on any construction work in the land.

The neighbour exercised all his clout to scare the "crazy" man away but all the same, jewel clung on to this place. 

Meanwhile, Jewel's family got the stay order cancelled in 2011. The Daily Star has gone through the court documents that confirm that Jewel's family has owned this property for over a century now. The grabber's appeal to review the cancellation of the stay order was also turned down.

 But threats continued to be meted over the phone. Nothing changed even after Jewel's siblings filed half a dozen general diaries and cases against the neighbour. So Jewel's family finally gave up on the land.

Bowing to such pressures, however, is another alien idea in Jewel's world. May be it explains why he has continued to stay at the place which, it is fair to assume, is deeply entwined with his whole being.

Mahmuda, however, finds the whole affair highly ironic. Jewel's rootedness in this place had not even been considered before his family members gave this land to a real estate company.

"Now he's the one protecting the land, keeping the grabbers away," she said.