May 23: Citizens First, a city-based NGO, today moved chief minister Tarun Gogoi with a plea to convert the vacant land of the Guwahati Central Jail at Fancy Bazar into an open park in the memory of freedom fighters instead of constructing an underground parking lot.

The NGO has submitted a memorandum to Gogoi and urged that the Guwahati Central Jail, constructed in 1881, which has recently been shifted, has a historical importance, as several freedom fighters were imprisoned by the British here, and hence, it should be preserved in their name.

“We want the entire land to be converted into a freedom fighters’ park with a martyr’s tomb in their memory. The entire land should be made green by planting flower and fruit-bearing trees. The administrative building and the boundary wall should be preserved as a heritage site and the park should be named Gandhi Maidan,” Ajoy Dutta, working president of the NGO, said.

All the inmates of this place have been shifted to the newly constructed jail on the city’s outskirts, and the total area of the old jail is about 60-bigha.

Officials of the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) recently told The Telegraph that Dispur was planning to turn the vacant land into an open space with greenery and a water park, with an underground car parking in a public-private-partnership mode.

With the central jail inmates having been shifted, this land at Fancy Bazar in the heart of the city is a precious open zone that can be put to good use.

The NGO, in a letter to the chief minister, also opposed the idea of handing over the plot of land to GMDA and its proposed move to build a water park and an underground parking lot.

“We have come to know that the state government was planning to hand over the land to GMDA and is also planning to involve private parties in the development of the project. However, we want no private players to use this plot of land for commercial purposes. We request the chief minister that no permission should be given to any business house to open their shops or other establishments on that land. Apart from freedom fighters from Assam, many other freedom fighters from different northeastern states too, were imprisoned here,” Jagannath Das, general secretary of the NGO, said.

“We are aware that Fancy Bazar needs a parking place and the side areas of the park can be used for the same, instead of constructing an underground parking lot,” Dutta said.

The NGO also urged the government to free the encroached land belonging to the central jail.