Grabbers flex court muscles

Although the High Court has recently directed the government to evict encroachers from four rivers around the capital, 147 grabbers had earlier managed status quo from the court through legal loopholes and turned everything in their favour.

Legal experts say the court order went in favour of the grabbers incidentally as they never mentioned they were filing petitions regarding riverbank and often produced fake documents to mislead the court.

Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) or the district administration could not take legal action against the encroachers following the status quo.

All those river encroachers now keep the grabbed riverbank in their possession and continue manifold use of the land, to the peril of the rivers.

"The BIWTA or the Office of the Attorney General should appoint a panel of lawyers to quickly resolve the cases," said Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association (BELA).

Allegations are rife that BIWTA also doesn't always properly move in the court to recover the grabbed land as some of its officials have underhand dealings with negotiators.

Sources say some officials of BIWTA help the grabbers in order to make a fast buck. On the other hand, BIWTA officials claim in every case they ultimately win, but the legal tangles make much delay or make it "impossible" to recover the land.

"We cannot evict the encroachers if the court issues status quo as we need to do everything within a legal framework. But the encroachers continue their businesses keeping the riverbanks in their possession," said a BIWTA high official wishing anonymity.

Some influential people including Golam Hossain from Shyampur, former BNP lawmaker Md Giasuddin Ahmed, Haji Kamal from Kamrangirchar and Saber Chowdhury from Lalbagh are among the 147 encroachers, who produced fake documents to the court and sought the status quo when BIWTA planned to evict them.

A high official from BIWTA said Golam Hossain is encroaching on a vast portion of the Buriganga in Shyampur for long. Initially this local brick and sand trader took the land as lease from the land office under the deputy commissioner's (DC) office, he added.

"When we wanted to evict them, Golam Hossain filed a case against the land office, not against us," said the BIWTA official.

The BIWTA later willingly became a party to the case and finally won it in the lower court.

"But Golam Hossain went to the High Court and got the status quo about his portion of land."

In a recent visit to Shyampur by the Buriganga and Kanchpur Bridge on the Shitalakhya, it was seen that Golam is not only running business but also rented out the grabbed land to some brick traders.

For his own business he filled up around 200 feet inside the river just beside the Shyampur BIWTA jetty.

On the other hand, Md Giasuddin Ahmed, former BNP lawmaker, encroached on a vast portion of Shitalakhya just under the Kanchpur Bridge to conduct his stone business.

The immediate past caretaker government in a drive to free the rivers demolished the establishments of Giasuddin and other traders.

However, as the BIWTA did not want to renew their licences and directed them to remove their business materials from the riverbank, they got the status quo from the HC.

All of them are still running their businesses on the grabbed land as the government agencies concerned are unable to take action and some corrupt officials help them remain there.