The High Court yesterday ordered the government to immediately stop encroachment and construction of structures on the bank of Shitalakkhya river and the canals connected to the river in Narayanganj.

In response to a writ petition, the court also issued a rule, asking the government to explain within eight weeks why it should not be directed to demarcate the area of the river after conducting a survey by a special team and to restore its original condition.

Secretaries to the ministries of planning, environment, land, finance, LGRD, shipping, water resources and communications, chairman of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, director general of Department of Environment, and deputy commissioner and superintendent of police of Narayanganj have been made respondents to the rule, Deputy Attorney General M Bashirullah told The Daily Star.

The HC bench of Justice Quamrul Islam Siddique and Justice Md Badruzzaman came up with the order and the rule after hearing the writ petition.

Petitioner Aslam Hossain, a businessman and social worker from Narayanganj, recently filed the appeal, seeking necessary orders on the government to protect the river and the canals from encroachment, Bashirullah said.

Citing the writ petition, Aslam's lawyer Siddiqur Rahman told this correspondent that some freedom fighters reportedly built structures on some canals linked to the Shitalakkhya river in Narayanganj by grabbing them.

Grabbing land of river and canal and building structures there are illegal, he added.