Khaled Hasan, Bangladesh

Khaled Hasan received his master’s degree in Accounting from the National University of Bangladesh, and recently graduated from Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography in Bangladesh. He has worked for The Daily Shomokal and Majority World photo agency. He won the 2008 All Roads Photography Program of National Geographic Society for his Documentary Project “Living Stone”. Of this work, he says, ‘The story is about the hard-working community of Jaflong, which is located on the north eastern part of Bangladesh. The Piyain River is the main feature, along with the natural beauty of Jaflong, which flows from India through Bangladesh. During the monsoon, the river currents wash down precious rocks and pebbles from India into the Jaflong area. At dawn every day, more than a hundred little boats with laborers enter the Piyain River, with buckets and spades in hand. The stones that tumble down the riverbed from India are decreasing in volume and the laborers are already taking the risk of invading the no-man’s land along the Indo-Bangla border, which is a contradictory political issue between Bangladesh and India. More than 5,000 men, women and child stone laborers are engaged here. The Bangladeshi government has failed to take any initiative to prevent the stone-crushing industry at Jaflong and the resulting high rate of erosion is threatening to destroy the adjacent Khasia (indigenous peoples’) villages within the next five years’.

Tagged as: documentary photography, Jaflong, Khaled Hasan, Khaled Hasan Bangladesh, Khaled Hasan photographer, Khaled Hasan photography, photos of Jaflong