Ritwik Ghatak's ancestral house demolished

RAJSHAHI, Aug 14: The last trace of internationally renowned filmmaker and director Ritwik Kumar Ghatak has been erased in Rajshahi as the authorities of a homeopathic college demolished the rest of his ancestral home at Miapara area in the city.
Earlier in December, 2019, the Rajshahi Homeopathic College and Hospital authorities had started demolishing the filmmaker's ancestral home but had to move back after filmmakers and cultural activists staged demonstrations, urging the authorities concerned to declare it a heritage site and establish a memorial museum on the premises as done with legendary actress Suchitra Sen's ancestral house in Pabna.
During a visit to the site on Wednesday afternoon, this correspondent found that the house was completely demolished and labourers were piling up all the bricks of the one-storey building at a place in order to remove them.
Shamim Mia, the contractor who was given the task to demolish the house and remove its rubble, told reporters that he was informed that the front wall of the old structure was vandalised by the students on August 6, one day after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country (on August 05).
'The college authorities then asked me to demolish the rest of the home and we have been working to make the whole place clear for the past three days,' he said.
However, Anisur Rahman, principal of Rajshahi Homeopathic College and Hospital, said that a group of students demolished the house on August 06 evening.
'We have been working to clear the place to set up an outdoor department of the hospital with permission of Additional Deputy Commissioner (education and ICT) Mohinul Islam," the principal continued.
Meanwhile, on information, members of Ritwik Ghatak Film Society who had been trying to protect the home as a world heritage for long rushed to the college and locked into an altercation with the college authorities over why the house was demolished without informing them.
'The college authorities are saying that it was the students who demolished Ritwik's ancestral home. But nothing was vandalised at the college. I think the home was demolished in a pre-planned way,' said Annaba Kabir Prokritee, one of the organisers of Ritwik Ghatak Film Society.
Liberation War information collector Waliur Rahman Babu, who also rushed to the site of the demolished home, said that Ritwik's father Suresh Chandra Ghatak - a district magistrate, poet and playwright - owned the building.
'Formative years of the filmmaker's life were spent at the house, as he studied at Rajshahi Collegiate School,' he added.
Later, Ritwik Ghatak Film Society members met with Rajshahi deputy commissioner Shameem Ahmed who instructed the college authorities not to remove anything from the demolished structure.
He also assured of protecting what remained at Ritwik's ancestral home and investigating the incident and bringing those who vandalised and demolished the building to book.
According to the Ritwik Ghatak Film Society, Ritwik took part in meetings and cultural gatherings with litterateur Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay on the premises of Miapara Public Library, adjacent to the house.
During the 1947 partition, Ritwik had to migrate to India with his family and the authorities later declared his ancestral home an 'enemy property' (now vested property).

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