Anyone taking a walk on Gulshan North Avenue may consider a location as a junkyard – the street in front of Gulshan police station that has turned into a dumping zone for vehicles seized for different reasons.
Left uncared for and unclaimed, the vehicles are causing serious trouble for pedestrians and people in the neighborhood as half the footpath and the street are occupied by useless, broken and old vehicles, like buses, trucks, CNG-run vehicles and motorcycles.
Locals alleged that these lines of dumped vehicles are also to blame for traffic jams.
Usually, police seize vehicles as evidence in a case, and keep them on the police station premises, but no settlement of the vehicles for a long period is turning the footpath, even the roads congested as the impounded vehicles block about half of the road.
Syed Ashfaq Hamza, a resident of Gulshan 2, crosses this road every morning due to his office and his children’s school purposes. The dumping of vehicles in the streets is causing the same suffering for him every day.
Seized car has been dumped at the side of the road in front of Gulshan police station Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune“They have occupied half of the roads on both sides of the police station with these seized vehicles. The police station is the custodian of the vehicles, but the street is not their property. It takes about an hour for me to pass through this road while going and coming back from the office, while ideally it should not take more than two minutes,” he said.
“And nothing has changed in the last couple of years,” he alleged.
During a visit, this correspondent found 94 such vehicles dumped outside the police station, including 20 private cars, three CNG-run vehicles, a covered van and 10 motorcycles.
The remaining 45 cars, 32 motorcycles, a bus, 3 trucks and covered vans were parked on the footpaths of three roads adjacent to the police station.
Residents complained that normal traffic is being disrupted regularly due to the impounded vehicles being kept on the road in front of the police station.
Saidullah, an office assistant in a private firm in Gulshan, said he cannot walk on the footpath due to the illegal occupancy.
“None of these are operational cars, rather broken old vehicles. One day, I got a major injury on my leg after colliding with a rusted car. Later due to that wound I had to stay at home for seven days with leave,” he said.
Dilruba Khanam, another resident in the neighborhood, said it would have been easier to move on the road if the vehicles had been moved. “We have informed the police about this station, but they said the government is not responding to their request for moving cars for not having an option.”
Solution is unknown
Under the pressure of impounded vehicles, each police station has become an unmarked dumping zone like the Gulshan police station.
Officer-in-charge (OC) Abul Hasan said: “A vehicle is impounded as evidence after a case is filed, and the vehicles are kept in the custody of the police station as evidence.
“Some of these vehicles are returned to the owner on court orders. But in most cases, you have to wait until the case is settled.”
He added that these vehicles were not the property of the police station.
“These are vehicles of different ownership; we have to keep them here as evidence. Since there is not enough space in Dhaka, the government is not able to give us enough space for the police station. So, we are not getting more space for the police station,” the OC said.
He added that most of the vehicles were seized in the case of a carrying of drugs and arms “The cars involved in accidents can be handed over to the owners within a few days.”
Md Aminul Islam, inspector (operation) of the same police station, told Dhaka Tribune that the police have a designated place to keep drugs or weapons seized in the cases.
“But we have to keep the impounded vehicles at the police station because there is no space in the dumping station. As a result, we are forced to occupy the footpath next to the police station.”
He explains that one of the reasons why these vehicles are piling up, but not decreasing, is that when 5-10 years are over and the case is underway, the tax amount of these vehicles for the period increases too.
“In that case, the value of the car is less than the tax amount. And no one comes to take them. Again, until the ownership of vehicles is settled, it is not possible to sell them in an auction.”
Inspector Aminul said they were also facing problems in parking the vehicles of the officials. “Hence, the problem is not likely to be solved until the government allocates land for the police station,” he added.