The eviction drive against illegal occupiers of Karnaphuli River land in Chattogram, which was suspended three years back for multiple reasons, will be restarted next month, officials said.
"The drive to evict 2,181 illegal establishments on the banks of River Karnaphuli in the port city will restart next month," said Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Chattogram Muhammad Momimnur Rahman.
The district administration will get into action soon after a decision to be taken in this regard at an inter-ministerial meeting, he said.
The drive will be conducted in collaboration with Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) and Chittagong Port Authority (CPA), he informed.
Noting that the drive was stopped after continuing for six days in February 2019, he said, this time it will be continued till the last piece of land is freed from the river grabbers.
Following campaigns by environment conscious people, rights activists and media, the district administration started an eviction drive against the river grabbers on Feb 4 in 2019 only to suspend it on Feb 9 due to legal complications triggered by some quarters which moved court against the action.
Then the concerned authorities of the government moved High Court seeking its order to resume the drive, the High Court on February 11, 2019, issued a directive to the CPA to evict all illegal establishments from the banks of the river within the next three months and disconnect all utility services, including power, gas, water from the illegal entities.
However, more cases were filed against the eviction drive by some land grabbers backed by a section of influential people and the coronavirus outbreak in 2020 followed by a series of nationwide lockdown, the prospect of restarting the drive was pushed into uncertainty.
In the meantime, fresh notices were served multiple times on the illegal occupiers.
"Despite serving of fresh notices, the eviction drive could not be restarted due to some complicacies, including filing of new cases and coronavirus outbreak," a district administration official said.
DC Momimnur Rahman told the FE recently: "We are ready to take action against the illegal occupiers. The concerned ministry has already started identifying the illegal grabbers. We shall go for fresh action against the land grabbers on the banks of Karnaphuli with the joint collaboration of Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) and Chittagong Port Authority (CPA)."
Contacted, General Secretary of Bangladesh Environment Forum Aliur Rahman said, "This is unfortunate that the drive has been suspended for unknown reason. But, we strongly demand to start the drive as soon as possible to save the River Karnaphuli."
Environment activist Professor Dr Idris Ali said, "The authority declared that they would evict all 2,181 illegal establishments on the bank of River Karnaphuli. But they are yet to evict the illegal establishments. We demand that the drive must be completed (this time)."
