5 hurt in clash over eviction
Slum dwellers along the rail tracks at Wireless Gate in the capital's Moghbazar clashed with police and members of Railway Nirapatta Bahini (RNB) yesterday during an eviction drive.
Several hundred people, many with sticks, chased the members of the drive team around 2:15pm after a quarrel over removal of a shanty close to the rail track, witnesses and police sources said. They threw brickbats at the law enforcers. Policemen then baton charged the slum dwellers leaving five with minor injuries.
Kazi Md Habibullah, assistant estate officer of Bangladesh Railway, however, said the team with a bulldozer was moving towards Malibagh level crossing after knocking down illegal structures along the rail tracks at Moghbazar. When they neared the slum, its dwellers attacked the team members, thinking that they would destroy the shanties, he added.
Only illegal shops and other establishments were destroyed in the drive that was launched on Friday following a train accident claiming four lives, Habibullah said, the slums had not been touched.
Yesterday's drive began around 9:00am at Moghbazar level crossing. The team knocked down the establishments on the southern side of the rail tracks first and then demolished structures on the opposite side. Around 700 illegal shacks, including shops, were demolished. The bulldozer was brought to a halt near an office of Chhatra League and another office of Bangladesh Muktijoddha Forum along the rail track.
A group of BCL leaders and activists talked to Railway Divisional Estate Officer Nurunnabi Kabir, who led the drive. Kabir gave them around 35 minutes to remove their office.
The Muktijoddha Forum office remained untouched.
Asked why the offices were not demolished, Kabir said the team would knock down the offices too. However, he and his team did not do so in the drive yesterday.
Local people protested the drive and stood in front of the bulldozer after it damaged the front side of a female madrasa. The team in the face of protest stopped demolishing it further and moved ahead to pull down illegal structures at Malibagh.
The drive will be continued, railway officials said. More than 100 members of Bangladesh Railway, railway police, RNB and labours took part in the drive yesterday.
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