Bangladesh News

The Bangladesh Railway, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) and Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) authorities conducted eviction drive yesterday, knocking down illegal structures and boundary walls, to recover lands that have been grabbed and to ease urban life in the capital.
Bangladesh Railway authorities with the help of the army, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and police recovered 23 decimals of land in Shajahanpur area that local influential people grabbed years ago.

Sources working with the railway department claimed Aolad Hossain grabbed the land and sold it to a local resident MA Bashar in 1994. Bashar made demarcation walls and a one-storey building on the land.

Bashar, however, was able to produce papers before the law enforcers that show Aolad Hossain had received the land from Ministry of Housing and Public Works as compensation before selling it to Bashar.

Railway sources said they verified the papers from the ministry and found the documents to be forged.

“The Ministry of Public Works can not allocate railway property to anybody even if the papers are original,” said a railway official requesting anonymity.

The workers of railway department yesterday knocked down the demarcation walls and the walls of the one-storey building in presence of law enforcers.

The department had knocked down the demarcation walls two moths ago but it was rebuilt.

Meanwhile Rajuk authorities during their drive led by Magistrate ASM Emdadud Dastagir knocked down a market built on the land of Joy Kali temple in the city.

The caretakers of the temple built the market with the help of local influential people without any approval from the authorities, said a Rajuk official.

“We knocked down the market as it was illegal,” Nurul Islam, a Rajuk official, said.

Meanwhile, DCC authorities yesterday knocked down the corrugated-tin walls of Shinepukur Holdings Ltd at Shahbagh as it was obstructing pedestrians on the pavement.

The DCC also cleared off the veranda of Municipality Market near Dhaka Sheraton Hotel as they intended to make a pavement there, market sources said.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Chhinnamul Hawkers Samity (BCHS) yesterday urged the government to rehabilitate the hawkers, who were evicted, in the city and to take steps against extortionists, BSS reports.

The BCHS leaders said the hawkers were evicted recently by police, Rab and the army but they have no alternative employment, a press release said.

They demanded the hawkers be allowed to do their business until alternative employments were arranged for them.