Eleven years ago, Madhubagh Jheelpar slum had only five one-storey houses on a wetland. The poorest of the poor, who could not even afford a room at those slums on dry land, chose to live in that slum in Maghbazar eke out a meagre living. But the scenario has changed in the last five years.
Now, to rent a 10-feet by 8-feet room, the dwellers have to pay Tk3,300, which comes down to Tk41 per square feet, as the slum owners have filled up the whole wetland, added an extra floor on the shanties, and gave the tenants gas and electricity connections. The number of shanties has also been increased to around 900 after the earth-filing. The rent of 10-feet by 8-feet room was Tk300 earlier.
However, there are still only three narrow entrances for thousands of dwellers, making them vulnerable to emergency situations like fires.
Yesterday, a sleeping child was burnt to death when a devastating fire broke out in the slum. More than 600 shanties were gutted in the fire that has left several thousand people under the open sky. The tenants said fearing a rush for the narrow exits, they had no time to think of saving their valuables. Beside, the fire spread fast as the houses were built with no space between each other.
The three-year-old child identified as Sabuj died when his mother Madina Khatun, a housemaid, was at her workplace. She left her daughter
Sathi, 11, to take care of Sabuj. She was in a fix when the fire broke out and ran to inform her mother about the fire.
Madina rushed to her shanty and saw her only son burnt to ashes along with the house.
According to the locals, seven people own the whole land and the shanties. They are Babul, Aklima, Dudu Miah, Rakib, Nurul Amin, Mofiz Uddin and Dulal Sheikh. They all have “utilised” every inch of the land by raising the shanties, keeping no space in between.
Babul claimed that he had bought a plot and built the shanties on holding number 357, 14C, some 10 years back. During that time he had 48 rooms rented to 40 families. His elder brother Mofiz and sister Aklima owned more than 80 shanties.
Nurul Amin owned 88 shanties set up on several kathas of land. But he does not live in the slum. He lives in an adjacent apartment. Asked why he had not built a building for him in the slum, he first said he did not have the required money. However, he later said he could not think of living in the slum, as he found it very unsafe. Nurul claimed that the fire had caused him a loss of Tk40 lakh.
He said they could have died in the fire being stuck in any of the entrances had they been living in the slum.
Locals said the gas connection was provided at the slum houses a couple of months back. Some of the dwellers, however, depended on firewood for cooking.
It is suspected that the fire first originated from a burner and then spread through electricity and gas connections. Not a single family could save their household items or valuables from the blaze. Most of the men and women were not home, except for a few who were preparing to go to work. Now, thousands of dwellers are living under the open sky.
Some volunteers and fire fighters said the whole slum area was unplanned and the houses were built haphazardly. The electric wires too were here and there.
“I was preparing [son] Mehedi for school and my husband went outside for a bath. Suddenly, we heard people shouting ‘fire, fire.’ We ran for life,” said Nasima, a housemaid, whose son is an eighth grader of Ucef School there. She came out of the house only with a polythene packet having three SIM cards in it.
Asked why she had picked up the SIM cards at that moment, Nasima with a blank look said she just grabbed whatever was near her.
Another resident, Rahima Begum, said her television and utensils were all burnt down. “We had nothing when we came to the city and now after seven years we have got nothing left again,” Rahima said.