CHATTOGRAM: Land grabbers are having a field day, especially in the port city, after the government relaxed lockdown late last month allowing super markets, shopping centres and shops to reopen.
After remaining in hibernation during a series of weeklong hard lockdown nationwide last month, land sharks returned to the city to grab government lands (khas land), footpaths, roads and highways to either erect illegal structures on those, set up temporary business establishments or makeshift markets to rent shops to small traders during Ramadan.
Most footpaths and both sides of roads and highways have been occupied by land grabbers since the government allowed private offices, businesses and shopping centres to reopen following relaxation of the restriction in mid-April.
Sources said land grabbers are likely to make their occupation permanent by constructing structures on those using bricks, cement and rods during the holidays of Eid-ul-Fitr.
As most of the city-dwellers will be outside the city, the grabbers, backed by some influential people and local administration officials, will build shops and other commercial establishments using rod, cement and bricks without anu resistance, said an informed local source.
They said, many illegal concrete structures have been built in Shershah Colony, Bayazid Bostami, Kazir Dewri, Chandgaon, Agrabad, Bahaddarhat and Chawkbazar areas before and during Ramadan.
It is allaged that illegal occupiers have constructed shops with cement, rods and bricks and built other permanent structures on footpaths and city corporation lands allegedly by managing a section of CCC officials.
