The so-called landowners claimed they had bought the plots from private owners after paying necessary taxes and obtained papers issued by the Deputy Commissioner's Office. An official source in Rajuk said the same way the entire area of the Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara Lake has been sold despite Rajuk being the official owner.

A portion of the lake that stretched along road 23/C, has been demarcated by dozens of claimants. They too have obtained plot numbers from the Dhaka City Corporation and Rajuk for the land that remains underwater. For instance, more than three quarters of Plot No.5 fall inside the lake area and have already been fenced in by bamboo poles for immediate filling. Part of the same plot has been filled up recently, local people said.

Chief Engineer of Rajuk Emdadul Islam said a high court order led to legitimisation of private buyers' right to the lake. In 1990,an individual, who bought a piece of land from a private owner, secured a court order that asked Rajuk and the authorities to register and approve the building plan in his name. It eventually set a precedent following which the entire stretch of the lake was sold out to individuals privately under a law. It allowed the original owners to claim their stakes in the lake's land if no development work was done on the acquired land within a specific period.

Emdadul Islam told The Daily Star that filling lake is totally illegal under the Wetland Protection Act, the Town Improvement Act 1953 and also under the Building Construction Rules. "Earlier, some of these plot owners somehow managed to have clearance certificates from Rajuk, but those are not valid any more under these protection acts," he said adding, "Soon we will go for eviction to make sure the lake is free from all sorts of encroachments," said Islam.

Owner of the so-called plot No.5, MA Malik said the 'land' belongs to him and threatened this reporter with dire consequences for publishing any report in this regard. His legal adviser, who identified himself as ATM Rafique told The Daily Star that they had all the documents, including Rajuk's clearance, to substantiate their claims to the plot. "This is not the lake but our very own land,"Rafiq added.

Residents in the neighbourhood cited the name of Akhtaruzzaman Babu to have encroached most on the lake with several acres demarcated by pillars under his name.