A woman from Bulgaria has spoken out to open the locked Shambhusagar Park in Karimganj. People from different parts of the country have joined her and raised their voices in support of the initiative. Children have demanded from Himanta Biswa Sarma to unlock the park. Meanwhile, some youths went to the park on Saturday (June 26) to clear the weeds in the park which even led to arguments.
Shambhusagar Park has been forested in the heart of the city for many years. The gate of the park has been locked on behalf of the municipality and the park has remained the same since the Congress period to the current regime. The Shambhusagar Park, which has turned into a dense forest now, is currently filled with numerous venomous snakes. Former principal of Karimganj College, Ramyabrata Chakraborty, son of Dr. Radhikaranjan Chakraborty has been vocal about the need to change the look of the park. He has also started a campaign on Social Media in regards to this initiative. The campaign has reached the international stage, and gathered so much attention that a social worker from Bulgaria has responded to it and even posted a video on Social Media. Alongside, citizens from different parts of the country, including Mumbai, have also spoken out in support of this initiative.
However on Saturday, some members of an NGO out of nowhere appeared in the park and cleared the weeds. This has even led to a verbal altercation between the two parties. Ramyabrata advised the NGO not to cut weeds in the park for petty interests. But, they did not retreat and have cleared the weeds in the park. Meanwhile, Ramyabrata has talked about some of the possibilities about the park. He said that he got to travel to various countries for work and every country has parks. Every park has some privacy. But the park in the heart of Karimganj city has been abandoned. He has started a social media campaign to unlock the park as well as make some new additions. Rosista Nikolova, a Bulgarian national and official of the National Health Mission, responded. In her video message, she spoke about her experience of visiting Karimganj. Rosista expressed surprise at the lack of a park in the city and demanded that a park be opened for the children. Even Agnijit Bhattacharya, teacher and writer Maitrayana Chowdhury, Tandrika Chakraborty, Ananya Mahalanbish, Rituparna Roy and others have joined this campaign.
Besides, children have demanded to open the gate of the park to 'mama' Himanta Bishwa Sharma, the Chief Minister of Assam through social media. "We have four demands," Ramyabrata said. The first demand is to clean the park, the second demand is to install ceratin equipments, to maintain privacy in the park, to install CCTV cameras and to hand over the responsibility of the park to an established NGO, said Ramyabrata. He even demanded that an open gym be set up like other parks. He said that vigorous publicity work is going on for this park. Even a song about this park is going to be released in a day or two, said Ramyabrata.
Meanwhile, the BJP is not showing any interest in this park like the Congress. From time to time, various events take place in the forested park. Many do not agree to take part in events or discussion meetings in the park for fear of leech. The toy train has also mysteriously disappeared from the park. Although this time, it has to be seen whether the ruling party's tone has changed after a foreigner has spoken out about the park in Karimganj.
