Turag not freed yet:Daily Star

The encroached upon portions of the river Turag at Machhimpur mouja in Tongi. Grabbers occupied several acres of the river by setting up concrete pillars and retaining walls. A three-day eviction drive against the encroachment was abandoned halfway last month. Photo: Sk Enamul Haq The Dhaka and Gazipur district administration and the BIWTA called off an eviction drive along the Turag halfway throu
gh on August 28, leaving out a large encroached part of the river. The High Court in a July 24 order had asked them to save the river by clearing it of encroachments.     Stretching from Kholamora to Teramukh across Tongi, the 38-km river has been turned into a lean flow of a virtual sewer by scores of “land owners” occupying the river. The district authorities and Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) jointly embarked on the three-day drive on August 26 to remove huge earth filling, concrete walls and pillars from the river in Machhimpur mouja of Tongi. Visiting the area on September 6, this correspondent found that the encroachments were still there.    Md Nurul Islam, deputy commissioner of Gazipur, said, “We couldn't fully remove the encroachments as the BIWTA did not provide us with required technical support.” He also blamed slack monitoring of the eviction drive for the incomplete work. The district officials concerned have been asked to remove the encroachments fully, added the DC.      Advertisement Talking to this newspaper on Sunday, Md Saiful Islam, joint director of BIWTA, said, “It was not fair to evict those who appear to have grabbed the river because the establishments are actually out of the river area and they have land ownership documents.” “We are often compelled to evict those apparent grabbers due to High Court orders and media reports,” he mentioned. Asked why the BIWTA did not challenge the HC order and media reports, he kept mum.  The same official earlier said they could not mobilise adequate equipment for eviction drives due to low clearance under bridges across the river. Despite repeated attempts, this correspondent could not reach BIWTA Chairman Md Samsuddoha Khandaker over the phone for his comment.  Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, said private individuals cannot own land on the foreshore, but they manage fake ownership documents in connivance with some unscrupulous district administration officials to grab the river. “The BIWTA and administration of the districts concerned faultily installed river demarcation pillars along the Turag and other rivers around Dhaka excluding their extensive foreshores to save fake land owners,” she mentioned.       The joint authorities during the eviction drive merely dismantled some bamboo poles, two structures of corrugated iron sheets, and some iron rods in three days, leaving enormous sand-filling, concrete walls and pillars in the Turag and its foreshores.  According to an official estimate, the encroachers have grabbed several acres of land in the river and its foreshores for a proposed private medical college, a memorial foundation and a cattle market.    Gazipur Executive Magistrate Tofail Ahmed, who led the eviction drive, said they could not arrange drill hammers for dismantling the strongly-built retaining walls and concrete pillars. Neither could they mobilise a bulldozer due to swampy foreshores. The authorities during the eviction drive floated an auction to remove the massive earth-filling within three days. But those who won the auction did not do the job in Machhimpur mouja and near the Dhour Bridge.   Seeking anonymity, locals said as the participants of the auction were assigned by river grabbers, they only helped the grabbers retain their encroached area.