Protesters turn violent during eviction drive in Kalyanpur

At least four people, including a policeman, were injured yesterday as protesters and police threw brick chips and chased each other and the latter fired teargas canisters during an eviction drive demolishing an illegal market and some slum shanties in the capital's Kalyanpur.

Meanwhile, the High Court issued an injunction staying the eviction of the slum dwellers for three months, during which the authorities concerned were barred from harassing and threatening the dwellers without specific allegations.

The demolished market, containing some 200 shops, and the slum sit on a land owned by the Housing and Building Research Institute (HBRI), under the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, which conducted the drive.

An HBRI architect, Jamir Uddin, told The Daily Star that around 15 of the 50 acre-land was illegally occupied.

Facing protests from the shop owners and slum dwellers at the start of the drive around 9:30am, Executive Magistrate Nur Alam returned with additional police around 11:00am and continued the demolition till 5:00pm.

Many slum dwellers were seen moving belongings while others wielding sticks demonstrated by burning scrap materials.  

Police eye dwellers of an adjacent slum, Pora Bosti, and owners of shops in the market who threw brick chips and burnt scrap materials protesting the drive. Photo: Star

Md Mamun, claiming to be a resident of the slum for the past 27 years, said there had been no prior notice. “The government promised us there would be no eviction without rehabilitation. We demanded rehabilitation before eviction,” he said.

The magistrate refuted, saying notices to free the land had been served repeatedly.

HIGH COURT INJUNCTION

The HC bench of Justice Tariq ul Hakim and Justice Bhishmadev Chakrabortty came up with the order following a petition filed by Ain o Salish Kendra, Coalition for the Urban Poor and two slum dwellers.

During the hearing, Dr Kamal Hossain said the authorities had tried several times and took up a recent eviction attempt on Pora Bosti (burnt slum) ignoring previous HC orders and despite planning that it would not do so without rehabilitating the dwellers.

He said following a writ petition filed by the same petitioners, the HC in December 2003 and January 2004 directed the authorities to maintain status quo on the eviction and issued a rule asking the authorities to explain why the eviction attempts should not be declared illegal.

In January 2007, the HC stayed another attempt until disposal of the rule, Dr Kamal said.

An injured protester being taken away to safety. Photo: Star

Sara Hossain, another lawyer for the petitioners, told The Daily Star that the Ministry of Housing and Public Works on January 10 sent a letter to police asking to remove the slum's dwellings.

Law enforcers from Mirpur Police Station picked up five slum dwellers on January 19, confined them overnight and told them to leave the slum, she said.

Sara also said a magistrate and some police have been deployed to evict the slum dwellers, which was a violation of the HC orders.

While traders and slum dwellers were staging an angry protest against a drive to knock down illegal structures on the land of Housing and Building Research Institute at Kalyanpur, one of the policemen deployed there gets busy with his mobile phone. He also finds a comfortable place -- on a tree. It seems nothing else matters to him. The photo was taken at 12:28pm yesterday. More on page 3, 5. Photo: Star

Another lawyer, Abantee Nurul, told The Daily Star that there were many women, children and garment workers and some freedom fighters among the around 20,000 slum dwellers.