A Supreme Court lawyer today served a legal notice on three concerned government officials asking them to stop cutting down trees and building concrete structures in Dhaka's Suhrawardy Udyan in 48 hours.

Lawyer Manzill Murshid sent the notice to Liberation War Affairs Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh, Public Works Department's Chief Engineer Md Shamim Akhter and Bangladesh's Chief of Architects Mir Manzur Rahman.

In the notice, Manzill said if the three officials do not stop this in 48 hours, a contempt of court petition will be filed against them.

He added many trees at Suhrawardy Udyan have been cut down and its environment has been damaged in order to establish a restaurant or shops for business purpose ignoring the verdict delivered by the High Court in 2009.      

Following a writ petition, the HC on July 7, 2019 directed the government to identify and preserve all important historic places related to the country's Liberation War and to set up memorial monuments at the historic places maintaining international standard so that people from home and abroad can pay homage to martyred freedom fighters.

The HC had ordered the government to take steps to protect and maintain the historic places at Suhrawardy Udyan where Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered his historic speech on March 7 in 1971 and Pakistani army surrendered on December 16, 1971.

Meanwhile, six rights organisations and an architect today collectively served a legal notice on the government demanding it to not cut trees and damage environment at Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital.

The rights bodies, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela), Association for Land Reforms and Development (ALRD), Nijera Kori (NK), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (BAPA) and Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) and architect Mubasshir Hossain sent the legal notice to the authorities concerned of the government asking them to plant three times more trees than those that were cut at the same places in Suhrawardy Udyan.

In the legal notice, they also requested the authorities to protect and preserve the original and natural historical shape of Suhrawardy Udyan.