For years, hundreds of mothers, children and low-income residents of Mirpur walked into the Radda MCH-FP Centre for vaccinations, maternal care, medical consultations and diagnostic tests. On Saturday, they returned to find their healthcare centre gone.
The buildings had been reduced to rubble, equipment and medical supplies were allegedly looted, and the only healthcare still available was being delivered under a tarpaulin beside the road.
A midnight attack on the Radda MCH-FP Centre in Mirpur-1 has left an immediate human toll beyond the destruction of the facility itself: around 300-400 patients who relied on it every day must now look elsewhere for care, according to centre officials.
The centre’s regular services remained suspended on Saturday. Patients arriving for consultations, ultrasounds, maternal and child healthcare, family planning and other services were being turned away.
Only the government’s measles-rubella vaccination campaign continued, with health workers setting up tables and chairs outside the demolished facility.
By 2pm, 21 children had been vaccinated there.
“Those who do not know about the situation are coming here for services,” Radda Executive Director Nasrin Akhter told Dhaka Tribune.
“Some are coming for vaccination, while others are coming for ultrasound and other healthcare services. But as everything has been broken and looted, we are asking them to go to other centres.”
The centre had four doctors and around 15 nurses, paramedics and other health workers, she said. They are now able to provide only vaccinations.
‘Where will I take my children now?’
For regular patients, the rubble represents something less abstract than a land dispute: the sudden disappearance of a familiar and affordable source of healthcare.
Momtaz Begum, a Mirpur resident who regularly brought her children to Radda, stood shocked before the destroyed facility.
“I used to bring my children here regularly. I knew many of the health workers. Where will I take my children now? There is no good healthcare centre nearby,” she told Dhaka Tribune.
“I came here today and was shocked. How could the entire hospital be broken down within a few hours? Nobody said anything. What kind of country are we living in?”
Another mother arrived to have her child vaccinated without knowing what had happened.
“If I had known, I would not have come here,” she said. “Earlier, I brought my child here and received vaccines inside the centre.”
On Saturday, mothers and children instead waited in the heat beneath a temporary tarpaulin.
The scene underscored the consequences of Thursday night’s attack: above the makeshift vaccination tables hung a banner asserting Somomona Dokandar Samabaya Samiti Limited’s ownership of the property.
Three such banners were visible around the premises.
‘Nothing remains’
Centre Director Iqbal Jillul Majid said Radda had long been a major healthcare provider for disadvantaged residents of Mirpur.
“It was a major support for the poorest people in this area,” he said. “Not only the poor, but also people from better-off families came here for different needs. I never imagined that someone would break it down like this.”
The centre says all 15 rooms at the facility were destroyed.
“Not a single room remains. They broke everything down and took everything away,” Majid said.
Radda’s Mirpur operation is listed in the government’s facility registry as an NGO clinic.
Available institutional records and contemporary reports indicate that its maternal and child healthcare activities in Mirpur began in 1974.
Health worker Farzana said the destruction had also disrupted basic record-keeping.
“We have no documents left here. It has also become difficult to keep track of how many children we are vaccinating,” she said.
According to Radda officials, the missing items include government EPI vaccines and registers, family-planning supplies, medicines, two ultrasound machines, computers, printers, refrigerators, a generator, air conditioners, CCTV cameras, furniture and other equipment.
A trusted option disappears
Showly Rahman, a Mirpur-10 resident, said she had visited Radda more than 20 times, particularly for her children’s vaccinations.
“Radda is a very reliable and beneficial institution for low-income, middle-income and working people,” she said.
Vaccines, she said, were reliably available at the centre at affordable prices when the same vaccines could cost considerably more elsewhere.
Roadside shopkeeper Yasin Arafat said he had watched hundreds of patients arrive at the centre during the seven years he had worked nearby.
“So many poor people used to come here and receive healthcare. Then suddenly it was broken down,” he said.
Police probe their own response
The disruption followed an attack around midnight on Thursday in which more than 200 masked people allegedly entered the centre carrying locally made weapons, restrained security guards and looted medical equipment and other belongings before heavy machinery was used to demolish the structures.
The broad outline of the attack is consistent with other reporting, although ownership of the land remains disputed.
A case has been filed with Shah Ali Police Station, and four people have been arrested.
Police said the arrested suspects admitted participating in the attack in exchange for money.
Shah Ali police also acknowledged that officers were present while the vandalism was taking place, although questions remain over why they did not stop it.
DMP Commissioner Mosleh Uddin Ahmed has formed a three-member committee to determine whether police negligence contributed to the destruction.
After inspecting the site, he said the scale of damage suggested the operation continued for a considerable period rather than just 30 minutes or an hour.
Police are also investigating allegations concerning reserved-seat MP Ferdousi Ahmed Misty.
She has denied involvement in the vandalism.
Land dispute, patients pay the price
Somomona Dokandar Samabaya Samiti Limited claims ownership of the property, but Dhaka Tribune could not obtain its detailed response.
Its listed office at Boishakhi Super Market could not be located despite inquiries, while a shop associated with the cooperative was open but unattended.
Radda officials maintain that if another party had a legitimate claim over the property, the dispute should have been resolved through legal and administrative channels rather than by destroying a functioning health facility.
“If they had a claim over this land, they could have contacted us,” Akhter said. “Instead, they came at night and broke down the entire institution.”
Whatever ultimately emerges from the ownership dispute and criminal investigation, the immediate consequence was already visible on Saturday: children receiving vaccines beneath a tarpaulin, patients being sent elsewhere and a healthcare centre that had served Mirpur’s residents for around five decades lying in ruins.
