The historic Jessore Road, immortalised in Allen Ginsberg's poem “September on Jessore Road”, is steadily losing the essence of its legacy due to a corrupt chain of unbridled tree-felling.

The High Court yesterday halted the felling of century-old trees along the Jessore-Benapole road following protests against a government decision to cut them down.

Although there is sufficient government land on both sides of the historical Jessore Road for its expansion, the local authorities seem to be hell-bent on doing the expansion by felling more than 2,300 trees, a several hundred of them nearly two centuries old.