Govt rolls into action

Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) yesterday began a three-day eviction drive against encroachment on the river Turag.

The government embarked on the drive following a vigorous campaign launched by The Daily Star against pollution and encroachment on the rivers surrounding the capital.

Initially, BIWTA along with district administrations of Gazipur and Dhaka knocked down parts of four huge structures including a kitchen market and a fish market in Tongi Bazar to the east of Tongi Bridge.

Portions of the Merchants Dyeing Industry and Bengal Indigo Textile Mills that encroached upon the river on the southern bank also came under the eviction drive.

The High Court's (HC) stay order barred the authorities concerned from carrying out any kind of eviction against a number of major river-grabbers, said an official engaged in the eviction drive.

A total of 63 structures on the Gazipur end and 69 on the Dhaka end were encroached on the river Turag. Of them only eight including a temple obtained permanent HC stay on the eviction.

The northern bank of Turag is under Gazipur district administration while the southern bank is under Dhaka.

Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Gazipur Kamaluddin Talukdar said the shipping secretary had told him the government decided to fence off the river permanently after the eviction.

When asked about how so many permanent structures were built on the river Talukdar said, "The previous administration did not take actions against river-grabbers."

Labourers started knocking down a part of the two-storey kitchen market at around 9:00 am but lack of coordination halted the drive until 11:15am.

The DC of Gazipur, BIWTA high officials, on-duty magistrates, land officers and other government staff along with policemen aboard four BIWTA boats kept roaming to and fro near Tongi Bridge for about one and a half hours.

The magistrate and police from Gazipur reached the spot in time and were ready to commence the drive but police from Dhaka did not arrive till 11:30am.
Assistant Commissioner (Land) of Gazipur, Atul Sarkar said, "As we got to the river site the plan got messed up."

Police inspector Zahir was heard shouting on the deck of a boat. The DC said, "It is just a show off only to buy time for encroachers so that they themselves can remove the encroached parts of their structures."

BIWTA Senior Deputy Director Golam Kabir said the confusion surfaced because of lack of coordination in making decision.

At around 11:30am, two of the four boats, sputtered towards Pagar mouja to launch the eviction with officials backed up by 20 policemen on board.

As the eviction team approached the industrial estate of Noman Group, its Deputy Managing Director Nur-e-Yasmin Fatima came out and produced two temporary HC stay orders.

Hundreds of labourers gathered along the boundary wall of the Noman Group industry sensing the presence of the eviction team.

Fatima along with one Dipu Kazi then said that they also obtained a permanent stay but yet to receive the copy.

Senior on-duty executive magistrate Abul Bashar Mohammad Ameer Uddin said Noman Group composite textile mills have grabbed 20 feet of the river as per CS records. "But we can do nothing because of the HC stay on eviction ," he added.

Noman Group has six composite (dyeing and spinning) mills on its estate of 30 acres of land.

The team then moved to the Merchants Ltd, a dyeing factory, but twenty labourers and one hammer were too inadequate to do anything to the tough RCC construction of the factory that went ten feet into the river.

A BIWTA tugboat had to struggle hard in pulling down the iron gate of the factory. It then knocked down the upper part of the RCC construction.

The other team, by the time, started knocking down Bengal Indigo at 12:15 and it went on until evening.

BIWTA Deputy Director Saiful Islam said Tongi was declared a river port in October 2004 with a total area of 65 acres including 27 acres on the Gazipur end and the rest in Dhaka.

A joint survey by BIWTA and Dhaka and Gazipur district administrations demarcated the port area of the river.

The list of illegal structures was first prepared in a survey in 2006 and it was resurveyed in 2009.

A total of fifty labourers were engaged on the first day and the government has allocated Tk 1.40 lakh for the three-day drive, said Islam. BIWTA chairman Abdul Mannan Howlader visited the eviction site.