I’ll take shelter on street: Moudud

Expressing frustration over today’s ongoing eviction drive at his Gulshan Avenue house, BNP senior leader Moudud Ahmed said he will take shelter on the street.

“Where will I stay? What will I do now? If needs be, I’ll take shelter to the street,” he told reporters replying to a query when Rajuk was conducting the drive to take control of the property following a Supreme Court verdict.

The household goods of the former law minister were being loaded to trucks till last reported at 6:15pm.

The apex court on Sunday dismissed three petitions filed seeking review of its verdict scrapping a High Court judgment that ordered the authorities to mutate the Gulshan land and residence, where Moudud has been living for more than three decades.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on December 17, 2013, lodged a case with Gulshan Police Station against Moudud and his brother Monzur on the charge of grabbing the "abandoned public land", worth over Tk 300 crore, in the capital's Gulshan.

According to the case statement, Moudud and his brother grabbed the land of around one bigha and 13 kathas between 1978 and 2006.

The land was enlisted as the government's abandoned land in 1972 after Pakistani couple Mohammad Ehsan and Inge Maria Flatz left the country before 1972.

Ehsan received the possession of the land in 1961 from now-defunct DIT [now Rajuk]. The land was transferred to Flatz in 1965.

Moudud falsely showed that Flatz issued a power of attorney in favour of him on August 2, 1973.

Moudud grabbed the land and its establishment, and started living there showing him as a tenant of Flatz. But the ACC investigation found no record that says she visited Bangladesh after the independence of the country.