Railway authorities yesterday continued to demolish illegal structures along the rail tracks in the Moghbazar-Malibagh area of the capital for the third consecutive day.
The eviction drive, however, ignored several illegal establishments in the area belonging to several bodies associated with the ruling party.
The drive began at 9am and continued until 2pm.
During a visit to the area, it was found that the Dhaka city Chhatra League ward 35 office and an establishment carrying a signboard of the Muktijoddha Sangsad ward 54 was untouched.
The railway eviction team refrained from demolishing the Railway Sramik League’s ward 36 unit office and Muktijoddha Command ward 53 office in the Moghbazar Wireless area.
At Malibagh, Muktijoddha Command’s Shahjahanpur office and two shrines – Azmeer Sharif and Bhandari Darbar – in the Khilgaon rail crossing area were also spared during the drive.
Meanwhile, slum dwellers in Malibagh launched an attack on the team around 2pm fearing that their slum would be razed to the ground. During the clash, which spread from Malibagh rail crossing to Moghbazar rail crossing, slum dwellers hurled brick bats at the eviction team and vandalised a bulldozer while police chased the attackers to bring the situation under control.
Kamalapur Government Railway Police (GRP) Officer-in-Charge Abdul Majid said the slum dwellers became furious when a rumour spread that the slum would also be evicted by the railway team.
“Later, we convinced them that all illegal structures, except the slum, would be demolished,” he said adding that more than 1,000 establishments were removed during the drive.
The establishments included some offices, shops and make-shift markets.
This was the third day of the eviction drive along the railway line in the capital, after four people died near the rail crossing at Karwan Bazar kitchen market on Thursday.
On the first day of the drive, around 70 shops by the rail track from the Film Development Corporation (FDC) gate to Tejgaon Railway Station were brought down.
Around 350 makeshift establishments along the rail tracks in the capital’s Malibagh and Khilgaon areas were demolished on the second day of the drive.
During the drive, Bangladesh Railway Divisional Estate Officer Nurunnabi Kabir told the media that the drives would continue until the rail tracks were made “free from land grabbers.”
Asked why they spared some establishments run by the ruling party and its associates, he said: “We will remove them soon.”
Meanwhile, several poor people, who used to live along the rail track, have alleged that they were evicted without any prior notice.
Sahela Begum, a 60-year-old victim, said: “They could have announced the eviction drive a day earlier. I could have removed my utensils.”
Widowed Sahela, who works as a house help, had a few things in her hut.
Shop owner Rahmat Mia said he could not remove his things from the shop as they were not notified earlier.
When asked, Nurunnabi said the illegal shop and establishment owners had been notified many times.
“But they did not pay heed to the announcement,” he said.
“The drive will continue. We will launch a fresh drive [today] in the Tejgaon area,” he told the Dhaka Tribune last night.
