Following complaints from residents, Gulshan police yesterday detained a man tasked with maintaining security on the site.

Officer-in-Charge of Gulshan Police Station Kazi Noor-e-Alam said they have detained the security personnel to extract from him information regarding the so-called owner of the site, who is filling up the lake. Alam, however, said police have yet to get any clue to the owner. He said that none has lodged any case against the developer.

Some one hundred residents yesterday staged a rally on the site under the banner of Save Environment Movement, protesting the lake filling by Times Tower. Naser Khan, the convenor of the organisation, said they are demanding immediate end to the lake filling. "We are appealing to the authorities to take exemplary action against the people who are filling the lake," Naser Khan said.

Times Tower Ltd dumps truckloads of earth during night hours, some residents nearby said. A large part of the lake has already been filled up. At the site, the developer has encircled the area with high, corrugated tins and installed a signboard that claimed that the Dhaka City Corporation has issued a holding number, which is No. 4. The company also claims that the High Court and the Appellate Division have ruled in favour of the Times Tower for the said property.

Local people said Times Tower had purchased 15 kathas (10,800 square feet) in the lake area from one Mansur Dorji for Tk 3.5 crore in the early nineties. It obtained Rajuk's 'no objection certificate' in 1995 and the approval for building plan in 1997.

Rajuk Chairman Mohammad Shahid Alam told The Daily Star that as soon as he heard about the attempt to fill up the lake, he has asked his officials to lodge a case against the developer under the water body protection acts.

"We shall protect the lake at any cost. We are also planning to deploy several hundred workers soon to remove the earth, which has been dumped in the lake," he said. When asked about Rajuk approval and no objection certificate, Alam replied that when the approval was given the water body protection act did not exist. "There is no way we can allow the filling up of the lake," he said.

When contacted, Managing Director of the Times Tower Reshad H Khan said Rajuk never acquired this particular piece of 'land', which belongs to the public. "We've bought it up following all relevant procedures," he observed.

The High Court and the full bench of the Appellate Division have ruled in favour of the company for the land, he said.

"We still respect the environmental concerns and if Rajuk wants to take this land for the sake of the lake it should acquire it by paying proper compensation to its owner," Khan added.